Not only does the Lakeland University Esports team crush it during the season, they crush it outside as well.
The Alex’s Lemonade Stand charity stream will be starting on Saturday, March 28. Events in the stream have yet to be announced. The event will be stream on Lakeland Esports’ twitch.tv page: twitch.tv/lakelandesports.
Alongside competing against teams across the nation, the Lakeland University Esports team finds ways to help the community in their own way. Using the power of the live streaming website Twitch, the Esports team raises money through a marathon event: 24 straight hours of being live, raising money for the Alex’s Lemonade Stand charity.
Alex’s Lemonade Stand is a charity that focuses on raising money to find a cure for childhood cancer. Starting in the year 2000, the charity has funded over 1,500 projects in over 150 research centers in North America. They utilize charity events to help fund these events.
Source: https://www.alexslemonade.org/about-alexs-lemonade-stand-foundation-childhood-cancer
Brett Sheldon, the head coach of the Esports team, created the stream with help from the charity themselves. “I got connected [with] Alex’s Lemonade Stand because they started an event trying to raise money through streaming.” Sheldon reminisced. “After that first event, it was successful enough to go away from individual streamers and focus on colleges instead.”
The stream is also a way for the Esports athletes to gain skills needed for the work field. “It’s an opportunity to get that experience.” Sheldon explained. “You can say, I helped raise X amount of money for this foundation, and here’s why.”
The athletes on the Esports team find the charity stream to be a source of pride. Chris Dedert, a junior, is a member of the Lakeland University Marvel Rivals Esports team. Dedert wrote to me in a written interview about his experience with the charity stream. “The charity stream to me is a really big opportunity to not only get our organization out there but do something good for a really great and important cause.”
Lakeland is not the only college in Wisconsin to work with Alex’s Lemonade Stand. Carthage College works with the same charity, and Sheldon sees this as the perfect time to collaborate. “Carthage is one of them [colleges] that we work with on a lot of things” Sheldon states. “It’s a really cool opportunity to bring another team on board.”
Other athletes on campus have also gotten involved with the charity stream. Video games are a past time lots of athletes enjoy, so they see it as a chance to beat the people on campus who play this game for the university.
The stream has grown tremendously in the past few years, and Sheldon doesn’t have any plans on stopping that growth. “I really hope to continue to grow this event that we run,” Sheldon explained. “I’ve reached out to a few companies to be apart of our initiative.”
Dedert also gave some of his thoughts on the growth that future streams can have. “I wish to get more involvement with the community…” Dedert wrote to me. “getting more of the facility involved in fun segments, maybe a little bit more production where we add a little more excitement to the already exciting atmosphere.”
The charity stream continues to be a tradition of the Lakeland Esports team. It unites the team and the community together to work towards one shared goal.