We are very proud to announce our final total for the 2008 Child’s Play season: $1,434,377! This is a new annual record for Child’s Play, and we send sincere thanks out to the entire gamer community for the incredible support that made this possible. Every toy and cash donation, every community and campus fundraiser, every employer matching gift and more comes together to make a huge difference in our partner hospitals all around the world. We’d also like to thank all of the volunteers and companies who helped keep Child’s Play running smoothly during our 2008 season.

We’re excited to announce a month-long fundraising campaign in the online worlds of EverQuest and EverQuest 2. Please visit our Events page to see how you can purchase in-game items that show your support of Child’s Play!

While Child’s Play collects donations year round, we wind down our toy drive component at this time of year. We’ll be making occasional updates throughout the year to bring you news about projects that we’ve been working on, and events that will be happening year round. If you have a fund raising event that you’d like added to our off-season calendar, please email klindsay@penny-arcade.com for inclusion. Child’s Play merchandise, including the Child’s Play Charity CD, will be available for purchase on our Activism page while quantities last.

Many thanks again to everyone who helped make Child’s Play 2008 an incredible success!

We are very excited to be heading into the holiday home stretch with donations this week bringing out total up to $1,172,346! Many thanks to all our donors, including all of those who came to us through new sponsor gamerDNA’s Community Contest. We also welcome JJGames to our sponsor list.

We’re proud to announce the arrival of the Child’s Play benefit CD. With all proceeds going to Child’s Play, this offering from the biggest names in nerdcore is a great way to support our cause.

We’ve also added a number of new fundraisers to our Events Calendar, including the Christmas Vs. Hanukah Comedy Showdown happening on Friday night. If you are in the Brooklyn area, please stop by the comedy showdown, enjoy a hilarious evening and show your support.

We hope you all enjoy holidays filled with laugh, love and harmony. From all of us at Child’s Play, thank you for your amazing generosity, and happy holidays!

We are very excited to announce that Child’s Play broke the million dollar mark this week, with total donations for 2008 pushing up to $1,070,000. Contributing to this big boost was the annual Child’s Play Charity Dinner Auction, which raised $200,000 itself and saw over 400 gamers and game industry leaders enjoy a formal evening in Seattle. We would like to thank everyone who attended, and made the event a runaway success.

We would also like to give a big thank you to Harmonix, who presented the current proceeds of the “PAX Pack” of Rock Band songs. The song pack is still available until the end of December, with all proceeds coming to Child’s Play. Please download it, rock out, and show your support!

This week also saw a huge leap in Amazon donations for our partner hospitals, from donors such as yourself. Sincere thanks to everyone who took time to send a toy or a cash donation in this week for the kids, and thank you as well to the latest member of our sponsor family, Powerhead Games.

Donations jumped up to $720,895 this week, thanks to individual donors and new sponsors PopCap, Molly Rocket, Valve, Bungie, LoadingReadyRun, Sony Online Entertainment and Delicious Monster. We also saw truly epic support from the gaming community via Desert Bus for Hope 2, which raised almost $70,000 in donations that came directly to Child’s Play. Thank you to everyone who supported us this week, we are so close to our annual goal!

Today is the last chance to buy tickets for our annual dinner auction. We will have some incredible items available for bidding, including:

• A mystery microwave from Harmonix
• A Halo 3 Master Chief helmet signed by Bungie, Roosterteeth and Penny Arcade staff
• A bronze-cast World of Warcraft statue of an orc and wolf mount, given exclusively to Blizzard Entertainment employees
• A mint-condition, limited edition Black Dreamcast autographed by former Sega President Peter Moore
• "The Sultan", a luxury heirloom furniture gaming table from www.geekchichq.com

Ticket sales close at 3 PM today (Friday)! We hope we’ll see you there next Tuesday evening!

With our total donations hitting $560,000 this week, we have a lot to be thankful for! Thank you very much to all the donors who sat down over the holidays, and made the decision to do something positive in their communities under the Child’s Play banner. Your support is greatly appreciated! We’d also like to thank our new sponsors this week, Ventrilo and Hothead Games.

Tickets for our annual Child’s Play Charity Dinner Auction will only be available until Friday, Dec. 5th, so please grab them if you’d like to attend. Unique and incredible item donations have been pouring in, and the dinner will also be the first opportunity to pick up an advanced copy of a special nerdcore CD to benefit Child’s Play. With acts such as The OneUps, MC Frontalot, Jonathan Coulton, Freezepop and the Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, this is a special way to support the cause!

The Child’s Play drive is going strong, with our donation total this week moving up to $475,000. Thank you to everyone who purchased a toy, book or game for one of our partner hospitals, or sent a donation via mail or PayPal.

By popular request our 2008 Child’s Play T-Shirts have launched alongside our Child’s Play Greeting Cards — 100% of proceeds go direct to Child’s Play!

Tickets for our annual dinner auction are selling quickly. Begin this delightful evening with drinks and butler-passed hors d’oeuvres as you browse a wide variety of unique items from the video game industry and more. After the silent auction wraps up, a formal seated dinner commences, while our Masters of Ceremonies Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade host a live auction. It’s a night not to miss!

What an amazing first week! Child’s Play 2008 is off to a healthy start, with donations totalling $214,591. Thanks to the donors and sponsors who stepped right up at launch to get us off to a great start. We welcome new sponsors Artix Entertainment and Colony of Gamers.

We are excited to announce the return of the Child’s Play t-shirt. Show your support of Child’s Play, and look sharp in the process!

We’re also excited to announce tickets for our Child’s Play Dinner Auction are now on sale. This annual event is the highlight of our year, and will be held on December 9th in Seattle. We invite you to join us for an evening of excellent food and drinks in a formal setting, with auctions hosted by Gabe and Tycho from Penny Arcade.

In additon to the dinner auction, we have numerous community-run events scheduled during the Child’s Play drive. Please visit the Events Page to find a fundraiser near you. Please let us know if you have an event planned that you would like us to add to our calendar! It is through the support of gaming events like yours that Child’s Play is possible.

We ended our 2007 drive with over 1.3 million dollars in donations, thanks to gamers all over the globe.

We’re welcoming ten new hospitals in Canada and the US to the Child’s Play network, so please have a look at the map to see if your local children’s hospital has come on board. Every hospital has a wish list full of gifts, and is hoping for your support. If you would like to learn more about getting a new hospital involved, please contact us to find out how.

We’re starting off the drive with a healthy total, thanks to the year-round support of the gamer community. Supporters have held gaming marathons, dinners and other fundraisers to get us started, and if you have a Child’s Play event that you would like us to add to our Event Calendar, please let us know.

We’ve also seen incredible support already from corporate and group sponsors. Many thanks to Blizzard, Microsoft Game Studios, Insomniac Games, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the IGDA Dallas, the team at Super Mario Marathon, Upper Deck Entertainment, Nvidia, Sex Panther and Flash Fire Communications for their support.

Also returning for 2008 is our annual charity dinner auction on December 9th, at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center in Seattle. More information and ticket sales will be available within the next week!