The FAQs

1. What is Make Room for Kids?

Make Room for Kids is a social media-driven fundraising effort designed to bring gaming and laptops to sick children at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh. It was named by my butler Mike Woycheck‘s wife Meg, because she is super smart.  Funds donated to Make Room for Kids are processed and housed at the Mario Lemieux Foundation, a 501 (c) (3).  If I need to tell you who Mario Lemieux is, then I don’t think we can be friends.

2.  How did Make Room for Kids begin?

You can read the very very early tadpole stages of Make Room for Kids in #2 of this Random n’at post.  Children’s Miracle Network partnered with Microsoft to award a $10,000 game room to the three hospitals that earned the most votes in an online contest.  I encouraged my readers to vote because I really really really wanted our hospital to win.  However, the voting became so slow and tedious due to site issues that I eventually told readers, who were trying to vote their little hearts out, to relax and stop voting.  We’d find a way to give the kids a game room without the contest.

3.  Why gaming?

Short answer, Genre Baker.  Long answer, when I first made the decision to reveal my identity, my butler Mike and I began planning a charity reveal via a party at Diesel.  The goal was to raise $5,000 for a local charity, but I wasn’t sure which charity I wanted to raise it for.  I considered the John Challis Courage for Life Foundation, but I wondered if there was a more direct way I could help sick kids.  Then the next day at church there was an announcement that a boy named Genre Baker, a church member, was fighting leukemia and in doing so was raising money because he wanted to be able to give the gift of gaming to other patients that didn’t have a hand-held gaming system like he had to pass the hours in the hospital.

I ended up nixing the fundraiser idea because it got too big and I got scared because I’m little old me, and I’m a writer.  I should use my words to reveal myself.  And I did. But combining what I had learned about Genre Baker and gaming, with the contest to bring a gaming room to Children’s Hospital, it felt like I found a way to use what little bit of notoriety I have to do some good for our local sick kids.

But short answer, Genre Baker.

4.  How much money did you raise?

In four days time, we raised $10,000 due to the generosity of my readers who are Burghers, either physically or at heart.  We kept the button up a week longer and raised $14,000. Since that time, additional donations have raised the total well above $15,000.

5.  I like the MR4K logo.

That’s not a question.

6.  Who designed the MR4K logo?

There we go.  The Make Room for Kids logo was designed by the beautiful and talented Rachel Sager of The Sum of David fame, who also designed my blog’s banner and who also designed the Make Room for Crazy logos and buttons.  She’s super kickass [rocker kick].

7.  Wait. What is Make Room for Crazy?

I’m so glad you asked. The Pittsburgh Pirates have not had a winning season for 17 years, but I believe that this is the year.  Burgh Baby, who raises money for Christmas Crazy for Kids, believes this is NOT the year because she is a terrorist.  So we have a little bet.  $5 and you pick a side.  If the Pirates have a winning season, Make Room for Kids get 75% of the donations.  If the Pirates don’t have a winning season, Make Room for Kids get 25%.  The winning side gets lots of cool prizes. Read about it here.

8.  So, what happened to the room?

This post really sums it up, but what happened was the hospital approached us and said that basically they have enough common rooms; what they don’t have is in-room gaming for the kids who can’t always leave their rooms, particularly those kids who have long hospital stays ahead of them.  The hospital informed us of the story of Noelle Conover, a mother who lost her son, a patient at Children’s, to cancer.  He was often waiting for a Wii to become available to him during his 100+ day stay at the hospital.  After his death, his mother was determined that no child should have to wait, so she held a fundraiser and in that way outfitted the entire oncology floor with gaming.  We liked that idea and decided to outfit the transplant floor, whose young patients are often isolated and who have hospital stays averaging 34 days.

So instead of one room, we made 24 rooms for the transplant kids by using the funds to outfit the floor with XBOXs in every room, ToughBook laptops, handheld gaming devices, movies, games and more! [rocker kick!]

You can read about the install day at Children’s Hospital here or you can watch this video and shed a happy tear:

9.  So, how about those Microsoft guys?

YOU ARE NOT EVEN JOKING.  Those guys.  Facilitated by Microsoft employee Luke Sossi, the local Microsoft office of 30 employees donated 8 XBOXS to the effort, which was matched by Microsoft corporate, bringing it to a total of 16 XBOXs.  Then corporate also pitched in an additional 3 XBOXs as well as two portable gaming kiosks.  Then employee donations pitched in another XBOX.  Then there’s the donated controllers, loads of games and even movies!  All told, that office supplied us with all but four of the XBOXs we needed to outfit the entire transplant floor.

I KNOW.

But they didn’t stop. From the time they said we needed to buy four XBOXs to the day of the install, they acquired five more XBOXs. We didn’t have to use one cent of the raised money for XBOXs.

10. Why the Mario Lemieux Foundation?

Well, hello!?  It’s Mario Freaking Lemieux, the President of Pittsburgh, and that fit nicely into my efforts to stalk him.  Also, we needed a nonprofit to handle the funds and reader Sooska informed me that Mario and Nathalie Lemieux’s foundation has an Austin’s Playroom Project initiative that seemed to fit well with what we were trying to do.  Executive Director Nancy Angus was immediately on board and Make Room for Kids and the Mario Lemieux Foundation are now BFFs like salad and french fries. (It’s a Pittsburgh thing.)

11.  Have you heard of Child’s Play?

Yes. They were the first organization I approached.  But I’m so happy we ended up working with a local foundation.  It all worked out just the way it should have [calibrates Stalk-o-Meter].

12.  What now?

Well, we’re going to get this transplant floor all taken care of and then we’ll look to the future.  Right now, we still have some stuff to purchase and then maybe we’ll raise money for other floors in the hospital.  It’s too early to tell, but Burghers’ reaction and generosity to this effort has been truly astounding and as long as they wish to give us money to do this, we will continue to do it.

13.  Burghers are awesome people.

Also not a question.

14.  Aren’t Burghers awesome people?

That’s church.

Category: | March 24, 2010 | 4 Comments »