Helping by Gaming

Greg Miller was a first-year reporter when he met Tim Grant – a six-year-old boy living with neuroblastoma, a rare cancer that develops in nerve tissue. Tim was something of a local hero. Greg’s paper, the Columbia Daily Tribune, had covered the story about the little boy who had battled an aggressive cancer into remission. But the cancer had come back, and Greg was assigned to write the next chapter of Tim’s journey. 

Greg spent time with the Grant family and grew fond of Tim immediately. They bonded over a shared love of Spiderman at Tim’s 7th birthday party. And Greg loved how Tim threw himself into comics and video games – two of Greg’s favorite past times – during chemotherapy infusions. 

“It was the first time I ever saw someone go through that,” Greg says. “At that time, I didn’t think I wanted kids, but if I did want a kid, it would be Tim.” 

It was Greg's day off when he got a call from Tim’s pastor. Tim had passed away that morning. Greg was floored. It was over. 

As Greg grappled with Tim’s death, he felt compelled to do something. He remembered how much Tim craved games during his treatments, so Greg packed up his Nintendo Wii – the hottest system of 2006 – and took it down to the children’s hospital where Tim had spent so much of his childhood. The visiting Wii and the volunteer gamer were a huge hit on the pediatric cancer ward – that day and many days that followed. 

A few years later, Greg was living in San Francisco when his world was turned upside down by cancer again. Greg was diagnosed with stage two Hodgkin’s lymphoma. As friends expressed their concern and support, Greg shrugged. If Tim could do it by gaming his way through chemotherapy, so could he. But the reality of cancer treatment quickly drove home how agonizing Tim’s experience had really been. 

“Discovering what a living nightmare chemotherapy was gave me so much respect for Tim,” Greg says. “He made something so hard look so easy. I thought – we have to make this experience better for everyone who has to go through it, most of all children.” 

We are part of a community that's helping people by playing video games. It's amazing.

Greg was working for an online media company in San Francisco when he discovered Extra Life – a Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals program that mobilizes gamers of all levels to raise funds for ill and injured kids in their local communities. In 2015, when he started his online entertainment business, Kinda Funny, he decided that Extra life would be a cornerstone of the company’s philanthropic culture.  

Over the past decade, Kinda Funny has become the top fundraising team for UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals, raising over $300,000 in the past decade and having a blast in the process. Thanks to companies like Greg’s, in November, Extra Life Bay Area will hit a unique milestone by raising its $5 millionth dollar for our hospitals, making it one of only three regions in the US to reach this remarkable goal. 

“Getting cancer was the worst part of my life,” says Greg, who has been in remission for 11 years. “As divided as we are as people right now, we can all agree that cancer sucks, that kids getting cancer sucks. It’s the worst thing when a child gets sick. And the second worst thing is the financial strain. That's what’s so special about Extra Life and Children’s Miracle Network and UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals. We are part of a community that’s helping people get through that by playing video games. It’s amazing. Whatever I can do to help these kids and these families, I will do it for the rest of my life.” 

Help UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospitals hit the $5 million milestone this November by joining the Extra Life Game Day on November 5th!