It’s Christmas Eve, preparations should now be complete as we all turn our attention to the big day itself. Before the man himself dons that big red suit, we’d like to share a modern-day, heartwarming Father Christmas tale of sorts from our friends over at Game Swap Shop UK, who, for the fourth year in a row, have completed a fundraiser for the kids of London’s world-famous Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH).
Every year since 2020, the community of the UK-based video game-swapping platform has come together to raise money to buy GOSH the latest and greatest in video gaming, which allows the children and patients to continue to enjoy the hobby we all share whilst visiting the hospital.
Daryl Williams, the founder of Game Swap Shop UK, uses the funds raised to buy all of the gaming goodies and delivers them personally to the London-based children’s hospital just a few days before Christmas.
This year, the company focused on getting the children an amazing PS5 set up, managing to raise over £1,000 to buy a brand new PS5, an extra controller (Purple to go with the Great Ormond Street Hospital aesthetic), and over 20 brand new games.
They also bought a couple of the most popular Nintendo Switch games that have come out this year — Super Mario Bros. Wonder & The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom — to keep their Switch collection up to date because in 2022 the fundraising focused on getting GOSH the ultimate Nintendo Switch set up (pictured above), getting them a new OLED Switch, two purple Switch Lites, extra Joy-con and around 15 AAA titles including Zelda, Mario, and Pokémon.
Since 2020, Game Swap Shop UK has raised over £10,000 in cash and gaming goodies for the Children’s Hospital and plan on doing much more in the years to come.
Founder Daryl Williams says, “It’s fast become a Christmas tradition to do this for Great Ormand Street Hospital and I love every second of it, it is such an honour getting to go down and hand over everything we get them, every year I’m blown away by the community’s generosity and I’m so proud to be a part of it.”
We applaud Daryl’s commitment to a cause that is clearly very important. The gift of video games is a fine thing indeed, and we hope us sharing his story will inspire others.
Ho, ho, ho.