Grizzly Esports Kicks in $15,000 For New Missoula Playground

Can playing video games help build a playground? Well, that's exactly what happened!

UM ESPORTS TEAM: "GAMERS WITH CAUSES"

UM News Service tells us that University of Montana students with the Grizzly Esports Team raised $15,000 to help construct Hawthorne Elementary School’s new playground equipment. The full cost of the Missoula school’s playground project was $150,000, all of which was donated.

On September 8, several UM gamers who assisted with the fundraising effort joined Hawthorne Principal Brittnie Keilman to celebrate the opening of the new play park. And just to prove that all gamers are kids at heart, they even tested out the new playground equipment.

UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA

HOW GRIZ ESPORTS TEAM WAS ABLE TO PITCH IN

Since launching in 2019, the team has raised thousands for dollars for various charitable causes like Children’s Miracle Network, United Way, and Shodair Children’s Hospital in Helena. This year they launched a new program, "Play it Forward," to help area schools raise funds for playground equipment.

For the Hawthorne project, UM Esports held a 24-hour video-game streaming event in the University Center’s Griz Esports Arena. UM students played a variety of games for an online audience, and Hawthorne educators and staff were recruited to participate. UM students helped design the 24-hour fundraiser and were encouraged to be as creative as possible.

People were invited to donate with several fun incentives. For instance, when $5,000 was raised, that triggered Grizzly Esports to launch a concurrent game of Euro Truck Simulator to augment the stream. Soon a UM student – wearing a trucker hat and using a big realistic steering wheel – was driving a hyper-realistic video game truck across Europe for 23 hours straight.

READ MORE: U of Montana Scores A+ Grade in Elementary Teacher Preparation

WHAT A COUPLE OF GAMERS SAY ABOUT BEING ON THE TEAM

One of the student fundraising captains for the Hawthorne, Stuart Doyle, was quoted in the release as saying, “I joined Griz Esports on a whim and made some close friends doing it. It was only after our first 24-hour charity event my freshman year that I realized the esports program did so much for different communities. Once I realized that, I knew I wanted to play a larger part in it.”

Assistant director of Griz Esports, Cale Patenaude, said, “We are trying to be gamers with causes. We want to be those people in our communities lifting people up and making positive impacts.

"We esporters do get a lot of screen time, but we also know the value of disconnecting and taking a break, and we advocate for that."

Thanks and congratulations to Griz Esports, and here's hoping Hawthorne Elementary is loving their new playground!