The Colony of Gamers has started its first annual Child’s Play Charity Drive. Less then 24 hours hours after it started, it is already up to $2,584 — a little more than halfway to the established goal of $5,000.

The Child’s Play charity was started by Mike and Jerry at Penny Arcade as a way for gamers to collectively counter the media mythos that we are nothing more than lazy, selfish losers. With Child’s Play, we demonstrate to the world that we are compassionate human beings, who can give money and gifts to hospitals to use on entertainment for sick children.

In the past, this has been a largely invisible outreach. Hospitals report that they have all the funding and support they require to tackle medical needs, research, and specialized care for children. But no one had ever given a thought to taking care of kids’ non-medical needs.

Child’s Play aims to do just that, by teaming up with 45 children’s hospitals around the world. The workers at the hospital make an Amazon wish list of toys, games, movies, and books, and post them online. You can choose a hospital (University of Iowa Children’s Hospital is on there!) and buy them a few things they need. Or, you can just donate directly, via PayPal, (preferably through our Child’s Play Charity Drive at Colony of Gamers, though you obviously don’t have to).

The gifts purchased are used in the hospitals in two ways. Most of the video games and movies are collected and then distributed via a “check-out” system to kids that are staying at the hospitals. The books and games are available in community activity centers. Some gifts are set aside to be given to kids that are staying at the hospitals during the holidays.

Yeah, I know. We’re not curing AIDS or cancer, or any of the thousands of debilitating diseases that exist. But these are kids. Kids that have terminal diseases, or painful illnesses, and have to spend far too much time away from their families while they heal and recover. They get poked, prodded, tested, injected, medicated, sedated, checked, re-tested. All day long, every day. Child’s Play is a way to give them the essentials of life. Laughter. Sunshine. Happiness. Hope. It may not be a cure, but it’s a great drug.

So, please, support the Child’s Play charity, in any way you can. Part of me does this every year because I have two young boys of my own, and the thought of them possibly spending weeks in a hospital desperately fighting some illness tears my heart out. I like to think that someone has given of themselves at some point in time so that one of them could have a few moments of happiness while suffering through the experience of being in a hospital.

We’re up to $2,632 now. Up $50 in just the ten minutes it took to write this post. Keep it up, gamers. Keep it up.