The stereotype of a gamer is a teenager or twenty-something that sits in a darkened basement playing Xbox for hours every day. They’re lazy, antisocial, aggressive creatures. This Christmas marks the fifth anniversary of that stereotype being turned on its head by the continuation of Child’s Play, a charity founded and funded by gamers.

Child’s Play was founded by Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, the authors of the gamer web comic Penny Arcade. The two decided to found a charity to refute the negative stereotype of gamers after reading a newspaper article that claimed video games were training young people to be killers. Child’s Play volunteers work with employees of participating children’s hospitals to create Amazon.com gift wish lists of toys, movies and video games. When the wish lists for each hospital are finished, they’re added to the Child’s Play website where gamers can pay for items for patients.

“Penny Arcade has a readership of something like 4.5 million gamers across the world. We are arguably the largest community of gamers on the internet,” Krahulik wrote in the original Penny Arcade blog post about the charity. “You guys have proven yourselves to be a powerful force when stirred into action. Here is your opportunity to use that power to do some real good.”

Since 2003, the charity has raised over two million dollars worth of gifts for patients. There are now more than forty participating hospitals worldwide, including facilities in Great Britain, New Zealand, and Egypt.

...And just in case you haven’t been convinced to donate yet, I’m going to yank on your heart strings here. This is an excerpt from a letter Child’s Play received from the father of a patient: ”Thank you so very much for what you’re doing. To be sitting there with your child who can barely move for all the tubes and wires connected to him, who hasn’t been able to eat for days and hasn’t been home in weeks, who can’t remember the last time he didn’t feel awful and wonders if he’ll ever feel good again, and have him laugh out loud when he crashes his go-kart in a video game…well, there aren’t words so I won’t try. Again, thank you.”

So run along to the Child’s Play website and donate something. This holiday season; give a child the gift of pwning.