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Fortnite Streamer DrLupo Raises $920,000 For Charity In Just A Few Hours
Fortnite streamer Ben "DrLupo" Lupo raised $920,000 in donations during the final four and a half hour block of Guardian Con 2019's charity marathon stream. The nearly $1 million sum will benefit the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Guardian Con, originally a 2015 meetup known as "DestinyCon" for fans of Destiny streamers KingGothalion and Professor Broman, is an annual charity event for video game fans that aims to raise money for St. Jude. One of the event's main fundraising vehicles is an extended, non-stop livestream marathon on Twitch.
According to senior Forbes contributor Paul Tassi, DrLupo's total may have broken a gaming stream record for the largest amount of money raised in the shortest amount of time. As outlined in the graphic below from DrLupo's Twitter, viewers who donated predetermined amounts of money would earn certain rewards, like initiating a raffle drawing or adding some challenge to DrLupo's Fortnite matches. Overall donation goals for DrLupo's stream added more incentives for viewers to donate, such as seeing DrLupo's wife and manager, MrsDrLupo, play Resident Evil.
DrLupo's impressive achievement comes just days after Destiny developer Bungie raised $400,000 for Guardian Con, which, according to Tassi, broke DrLupo's 2018 Guardian Con record of $350,000. It costs $2.8 million to run St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for just one day, according to Guardian Con's website. Including the $1,320,000 raised during Bungie's and DrLupo's streams, Guardian Con 2019 has raised $3,720,297 at the time of writing - $720,000 more than its $3 million goal. This year's livestream began on June 16 and concluded with DrLupo's block on June 23, according to the stream's schedule on Tiltify, but there's still more fundraising to come. The Guardian Con 2019 convention itself will take place in Orlando, Florida on July 5 and 6, raising more money to benefit St. Jude.
According to an informational video included near the beginning of DrLupo's block in the stream, St. Jude partners with facilities around the world to share medical discoveries, meaning the research funded by Guardian Con will help benefit children beyond the U.S. When it first partnered with St. Jude in 2016, the Destiny Community Con (as it was known then) raised more than $544,000 for the hospital. Guardian Con donations almost doubled that amount in 2017 ($1,078,510) and more-than-doubled 2017's total in 2018 ($2,851,866).
This year's Guardian Con fundraising efforts are pretty incredible. It's wonderful to see gamers coming together to make the lives of others better. Every successful gaming-based charity event - from Games Done Quick to Extra Life - is a reassurance that this community can be a force for positive change, in spite of its flaws.
