"About Us" pages tend to look and feel the same. When the company was founded, by whom, etc. A new look can grab attention and make a customer care. Tell a shory. Show who are are. Don't just give dates and canned comments.

Play To Give Back is a charity run by online gamers. They know all about banding together to making an impact. Read their origin story below.

The news hit us hard. A five year old girl who played the same video game we played, MechWarrior Online, had succumbed to cancer. We all knew her story. How she loved to play the game with her Dad. How the game company was going to give her a shout-out to boost her spirits. But just like that, she was gone. An impotent rage rippled through our gaming community. We had to do something. 

It took us three days to put our event together. Entirely internal, we were going to hold a gaming marathon and raise as much money as we could from our members. We grabbed every tool we could think of. This was all new to us, so we didn't know what we couldn't do. We only knew what we had to do. Something. We set up live streaming and video interviews on Google Hangouts. We told absolutely everyone we knew what we were doing. 

48 hrs later, we had raised $16,000 for St. Judes Children's Hospital. Over the next week, as word got out, another $10,000 poured in. The shock and pride were palpable as we made the donation and a new emotion rippled through our community. We are, it should be noted, a group of active duty military and veterans. Some of us are civilians with an appreciation of the military. Above all, though, we are family. We have always tried to help each other when and where we could. Pooling our resources was nothing new to us. If we could raise $26,000 in such a short period of time, with so little knowledge, what could we do if we really put our backs and brains into it?

And so, we formed Play To Give Back. Because doing something matters.

Of course, we didn't stop there. How could we? Running on feeling good and doing good, we reached out to everyone we knew. Game companies and charities. We went to major conventions and held panels on giving back. 

Then one of our members mentioned an organization called Honor Flight. Washington DC is home to a myriad of war memorials. One of the largest is the World War II memorial. It is magnificent. The Honor Flight charity rents out commercial airplanes and flies WWII vets, along with a chaperon for each, to DC for a day of remembrance. They visit the memorials and Arlington Cemetery where they witness the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Every veteran who participates says it's one of the best days of their lives. We had to be a part of this. 

Working with the creators of the most successfully crowd-funded video game in history, we ran a Veteran's Day fundraiser. They would release a new skin for the game, we would collect half the proceeds. At the end of the weekend, we were able to make donations to several charities. Better yet, we were able to sponsor our very own Honor Flight. The whole thing. All ours. We met with the coordinators for the Conyors, GA Honor Flight hub and presented them with a check. One of our members signed up to be a chaperon, which meant flying from his home in Chicago to Georgia, just so he could get on another plane and fly to DC. We put the word out and every member in the area joined us at the airport to welcome our Flight.

The story of that epic day is a tale for another time and another page. Suffice it to say, it was one of our proudest moments as we went from monument to monument and closed out the day with dinner and hugs. There wasn't a dry eye in the house.

 So here we are. Firm in our belief that we are doing exactly what we should be doing and proud of every step we take. After all...

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

- Margaret Mead