All night gaming event helps sick kids

When you walk into Kirk Fierback's home, you can see his love of video games right away—a painting of the Super Mario Bros. game in the hallway, a giant image of a Super Nintendo controller above the sofa.

That's in addition to a giant bookcase full of games in plastic cases. 

"I am a bit of a collector of everything old, new and in between. I still have my old original Super Nintendo from back in the day, and I love going out and finding games for it."

Fierback is co-president of Extra Life Winnipeg, which is putting on a 24-hour gaming marathon this weekend to raise money for the Children's Hospital Foundation of Manitoba.

Extra Life groups are spread throughout North America, with participants signing up online and soliciting donations. That culminates with the big gaming event. While the official date is Nov. 2, the Winnipeg chapter of Extra Life has its event this weekend.

For the past seven years, Fierback has been putting his joy of gaming into helping sick kids.

"I raised almost a thousand dollars (his first year). From then on I was hooked. It's been seven years now of raising money for Children's Hospital."

Fierback said he always wanted to do something to help out the local charity after having his appendix removed as a teen.

Shawn Bernard is the fundraising leader for Extra Life North. He is passionate about raising money for the children's hospital since a close family friend's son was very sick with aplastic anemia and required a bone marrow donation. 

"I was doing it for them, and then through all the years of doing this I've had the pleasure of getting to know people who have been affected. Whether it's their own children themselves, friends, family, whoever, children who have had to rely on this system. That collective of stories and that knowledge of where it's going has really warmed something inside of me."

This year, Bernard has set a goal of raising $5,000, and promises to have some fun with it by getting inked.

"I have promised to get a tattoo of a reasonable size, permanent, of my own face, with the highest donation bidder selecting the picture of me that they would like to get tattooed on me." 

The eight-year Extra Life veteran already has a few tattoos to express his love of video games like Tetris and The Legend of Zelda. 

For the all-night gaming event, participants will need to bring their own gaming supplies, such as video game consoles and televisions. However, all games are welcome at the event, including board games.

"It's always nice to get the board gaming folks at these events and hang out with them and play — take a break from looking at screens all 24 hours and go play Cards Against Humanity or something," said Fierback.

The Extra Life North 24-hour game-a-thon gets underway Saturday at Bold Commerce, located at 50 Fultz Blvd.