Keith participates in an online charity organization called "Extra Life".

Extra Life (https://www.extra-life.org) is an online charity event that began in 2008 supporting the Children’s Miracle Network Organization, which has hundreds of affiliated hospitals worldwide. Featuring thousands of individual and team contributions, participants primarily stream playthroughs of video games on popular streaming platforms such as Twitch, Youtube, and Facebook Live. Along the way, they receive donations from viewers and supporters that go towards a CMN affiliated hospital of their choice.

FROM KEITH:

"I began... participating in Extra Life in 2014 playing for Connecticut Children’s Medical Center. In the first year I played twenty-four hours straight through, raising $505. Since then, I have participated every year, raising a total of $1800 with the conclusion of this year’s events. I have played 55 unique titles on stream for a total of roughly 110 hours over five years.

My motivation...

for doing this stems from a childhood experience where I spent a couple days sick in the children’s wing of the hospital my mother worked at. There I was able to play a Nintendo Entertainment System, and watch movies. When Child’s Play, another online gaming charity started in 2003, they raised money and Amazon Wish List items to send to children’s hospitals so they had something to do while being in the hospital.

I donated items to Montefiore Children’s Hospital in Bronx, NY, which was the closest participating hospital at the time. Eventually, Connecticut Children’s Medical Center joined Child’s Play, and I would donate hundreds of dollars to them by way of Child’s Play charity events like Mario Marathon (http://www.mariomarathon.com/), Desert Bus For Hope (https://desertbus.org/), Play2Raise (http://www.play2raise.net/), and more.

But rather than be a viewer, I wanted to be a contributor. Extra Life gives everyone the ability to become a contributor towards their chosen hospital using popular streaming platforms, and I am happy to have contributed the last five years to raising almost two-thousand dollars for my local hospital. I hope to be able to continue this next year, and beyond. "