When I was a kid we had charity walkathons at my school. We walked around the playground, making money each lap for a cause I’ve forgotten.
When I worked for MTV, Second Life was popular, so someone was doing a walkathon in that virtual world, for cancer research.
Today, games in which you might be able to run forever are the rage. If you play games on an iPhone or in a browser, you might have tried the likes of Canabalt, Monster Dash or Robot Unicorn Attack. You can run forever in these games, if you’re good enough. But why? Why do you run? For points?
A group called GameGround believes you might want to run in a video game for the sake of democracy. They are launching a charity race that will be run on the popular mobile and Flash game Canabalt. It’s easy to run a wee bit further in Canabat than in real life, so they’re offering a dollar to everyone who runs in their charity, the proceeds of which will go to the National Democratic Institute, a group, according to GameGround’s press release that works “to support and strengthen democratic institutions worldwide.”
As with any charity, you should do your homework and decide whether it’s one you support (the sign-up is here). GameGround is aiming for $US100,000 in contributions and/or a combined tally of 100,000,000 meters run, enough to get around Earth a couple of times.
At least they’re not doing this charity in QWOP.
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