Today UWE Students will be presenting over £700 worth of games to Bristol Royal Hospital for Children.

The funds were raised through Ctrl Alt Donate – a huge 25 hour gaming event held in UWESU and hosted by the Video Gaming Society. During the event over 50 students stayed up from 2pm until 2pm the following day, challenging each other to video games, board games, guitar hero and more.

The funds raised have been used to buy a selection of board games and computer games specified by the hospital’s Play Department. As the event was such a success, the Ctrl alt Donate team were also able to purchase an iPad for the hospital.

Lynne Barlow, hospital play specialist, said, “We are thrilled to have been chosen to benefit from the charity gaming event, Ctrl Alt Donate at UWE Bristol. The generous donation will mean lots of new toys and games to play with for patients and young people at the hospital. The iPad will be in demand for everything from normalising and sensory play sessions to a distraction tool for patients undergoing difficult or painful procedures and treatments.”

The games will be presented to the hospital’s Play Department by Martin Campbell-Moore – a Computer Systems Integration student at UWE and the lead organiser of the event, along with Hannah Khan – UWESU’s Vice President for Societies and Communication.

Martin Campbell-Moore said “I'm very proud of everyone who made this event such a success and overwhelmed by the generosity of the donations. We were all hugely motivated to do our best for this fantastic cause – Bristol Royal Hospital for Children - recognising the incredible bravery of the children and hope that in some small way these games will help their time in hospital.”

“We'll be running Ctrl Alt Donate again at UWE Bristol on Saturday 25 October, a 25 hour event, to mark the clocks rolling back. This year's event will involve universities across the South-West with a view to rolling it out across Universities throughout the UK for future events. I think that this event has the potential to be epic and it's just as important to me as graduating from my degree.”

He adds, “I think that at UWE Bristol, the students here are really special, and there is a real passion for volunteering and fundraising amongst them. So much so that some of the graduates who took part last year have already signed up for this year.”