![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/15854022922_c169524dc5_o.jpg\")
<\/a>During the event, staff and volunteers play Desert Bus<\/i>, an incredibly boring video game where you drive a bus from Tuscan, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time. The first hour raises $1. With each hour that passes, viewers must donate seven percent more to keep the fundraiser going.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do it for as long as people keep giving us money,\u201d says Turner. \u201cAt this point, nine years in, we know that it runs for about six and a half days. But it gets to the point where it costs so much money to keep us going that we just can\u2019t raise that kind of cash anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea of doing something to support Child\u2019s Play was originally Turner\u2019s.<\/p>\n
\u201cEight years ago, LoadingReadyRun had this tiny little fan base, and it seemed like we could do something with it to help this charity I had been donating to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Paul Saunders, one of the original LoadingReadyRun members, found the game online and wanted to do something with it. At first, they wanted to play the game and film themselves for their YouTube channel, but instead they decided to do that as well as raise money for the charity Turner was interested in supporting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were like, okay, well, we might as well do something useful with it,\u201d says Turner. \u201cWhy Desert Bus<\/i>? Because it was there and it made us laugh, and to be honest, it is a very boring game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Desert Bus for Hope has grown from a small, impromptu event held in a living room to a professionally organized (and professionally catered) fundraising marathon.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the beginning we would feed each other,\u201d says Turner. \u201cIt would be like, all right, shovel this spaghetti in, or in the early years it was cookies and cake and pop. Now it\u2019s catered by a real place and we eat actual food.\u201d<\/p>\n
Catering isn\u2019t the only way Desert Bus for Hope has changed over the years; the organizers have also experimented with a variety of schedules. After much juggling, the crew found a schedule that worked.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone has an eight-hour driving shift,\u201d says Turner. \u201cIf you\u2019re not driving then you\u2019re either at home resting or you\u2019re a co-pilot, which is basically the people who are running the show.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Turner, the hope is that switching to eight-hour shifts will ensure that one of the 19 drivers will always be playing the game, while also affording all involved plenty of opportunity to get on camera doing challenges, singing silly songs, or acting in fun skits.<\/p>\n
Desert Bus for Hope now has over 15 staff members working throughout the year, as well as 45 volunteers dedicated to keeping the show on the road. For more information, or to watch their live webcast of the event, visit desertbus.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Mark your calendars, gaming enthusiasts: Desert Bus for Hope returns on November 14. This unique event mixes philanthropy, gaming, and all things nerd culture. Desert Bus for Hope is an annual charity event that raises funds for Child\u2019s Play, a Seattle-run game-industry charity focused on raising funds for children\u2019s hospitals and sexual-assault resources. Desert Bus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11272,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1,154],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-uncategorized","category-november-4-2015"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11270"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11273,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11270\/revisions\/11273"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}