YouTuber Matt Cullimore completed another marathon 24-hour POKEMON live stream over the weekend, raising over £1600 for Rockinghorse.
Matt regularly supports us through his fantastic YouTube channel where he organises a range of different POKEMON giveaways and competitions. And following his previous successful livestream event in June, Matt decided to undertake another one in support of Rockinghorse.
As Matt explains: “The last event was so successful that I wanted to try and do another one but this time even bigger! The livestream in June was great, and one of my biggest challenges, but I knew I could do even better having that experience under my belt, so I started planning another one.”
Matt has been an avid supporter of Rockinghorse since 2019 when his youngest son Logan was cared for in the Trevor Mann Baby Unit after being born two months premature. Along with Logan being in hospital, Jasmine was also admitted to the ICU for ten days suffering from acute kidney failure following pre-eclampsia.
It was this experience that led Matt to gaining a better understanding of the work Rockinghorse do in the TMBU and Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital: “The care, equipment, staff and support given to Logan was incredible and because I knew how well cared for he was, it gave me a chance to take care of Jasmine as well.
Whilst Matt had already planned and experienced a 24-hour live gaming stream, he knew there were things he could improve on to make this next event even more successful. Firstly, Matt chose really interactive games that kept him much more engaged and then took six minutes breaks every 90 minutes to help keep him refreshed.
Matt ready for a sleep after his livestream
And when his viewers started donating, that gave him even more determination to carry on: “When you see a donation coming in, it really motivated me. In total I had about 2,000 viewers watch the gaming and I kept it interesting by stopping every 2 hours to open a new pack of POKEMON cards. I also changed up the games I was playing more frequently, adding Fall Guys and Among Us to POKEMON Shield.”
There were even short appearances by his boys Hugo and Logan, along with Jasmine. This gave Matt a chance to explain to his viewers why he had chosen Rockinghorse to donate to. And he also had prize giveaways to keep his audience engaged, with one lucky winner bagging a Nintendo Switch.
After the 24 hours was up, Matt felt really energised, even staying online for another 15 minutes to thank everyone for watching. And all his hard work certainly paid off, with over £1,600 raised for the charity during the event.
But this certainly isn’t the end of Matt’s fundraising. He’s planning another livestream event in December: “I think it will be really popular around Christmas time and I’m hoping to be able to get one of the new Xbox or PlayStation game consoles to give away. And my aim for the next one is getting across the £2,000 threshold, so keep an eye out for the time and date of my next stream and get involved!”
If you’re a gamer and would like to take on a livestream challenge for Rockinghorse, you could do your own Gaming for Good. For more information or advice, just contact Lucy Pond, Challenge Events Manager at Rockinghorse on: lucy.pond@rockinghorse.org.uk
