Wayland Esports team raises money for children in hospitals

LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) - On Nov. 4, Wayland Baptist University’s Esports team spent 12 hours gaming, and raised more than $1,200 for children in hospitals through the fundraising program Extra Life.

Head coach of the Wayland Esports team, Duncan Sweeney, says it was a busy night to achieve their goal.

“I was amazed by the generosity of the donors, I was amazed by the motivation of the students - it was just amazing,” Sweeney said.

The night started at 6 p.m. with 25 Esports athletes, and ended at 6 a.m. with 19 motivated students left.

Anyone watching the Twitch stream was able to donate by commenting or using the link on the team’s profile. They reached their goal, and exceeded how much they raised last year, with donations from previous Wayland Esports athletes.

“A couple of our alumni especially came in and donated a lot, and so we were like sending the links around, and so they were like ‘Go WBU,’ and then they would say donated this amount of money,” Esports athlete Devin Davis said.

The event attracted donations from all over the world, and put Wayland Esports on the map.

“People we have no idea who they are, we only saw their Twitch account name and that was it, and we had no idea who they were,” Davis said. “They donated; I think one of them donated like $200 to us.”

Davis says by the time the clock hit 3 a.m. he was afraid they might not reach their goal. Then, overnight workers from around the globe joined the stream. Sweeney said that feeling was unreal.

“We were streaming, and we would see the message come up saying so and so anonymous donator has donated $100, and it’s, the energy just goes crazy whenever everyone’s freaking out about a donation like that,” Sweeney said.

The Esports team plans to partner with Extra Life annually to keep raising money.

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