Two separate charity initiatives within the UK League of Legends/esports community recently concluded, raising thousands of pounds for bereaved families and vulnerable children.
First up, ‘the other Perkz’, aka Emily Perkins, a school teacher based in Leicester in the UK, who shares an online name with Vitality pro League of Legends player Luka ‘Perkz’ Perković and is a part of Cloud9, raised just over £6,000 for The Laura Centre, in memory of a student of hers who passed away in 2015.
The Laura Centre offers free support to parents who’ve lost a child and to children who’ve lost a parent or other significant person.
Emily cycled 3,500km over the past year to raise the money for charity, and Cloud9 supported her by creating and selling guinea pig stickers and patches.
Perkz has guinea pigs, one of which shares the name of C9 mid-laner Fudge.
Emily’s initiative was known as ‘Emily’s Tour De Living room’ – you can see more info on this here.
Emily’s fundraising is in memory of Kian Gill, one of her students who tragically lost his life in 2015 after a car collided with his bike on his last day of school in year 11.
Then secondly, UK esports organisation Fodels Forgers teamed up with content creation collective LeagueWorks to run a charity League of Legends tournament in December 2021.
Fodels Forgers ended up winning the grand final themselves, 3-2, in an epic five-game match versus Painkillers Remastered.
The tournament raised £1,000 for the Read Foundation, a non-profit working to eradicate poverty through education by building schools and supporting orphans to change lives.
Fodels Forgers founder Fadel told Esports News UK: “Read Foundation is a charity that’s dear to my heart as it tackles the issues of the less fortunate in both the long term (i.e. education) and short term (i.e. emergency care in this case).
“I believe education is one of the most reliable avenues of transforming socio-economic statuses of communities, as my father was the first man in his family to pursue higher education and as a result many members of our family are now educated. I can’t express how thankful we are for all the support shown to the event in whatever medium it may be.”
Fodels Forgers also has a UK League of Legends team taking part in the NUEL’s next university esports tournament.
A huge congratulations to C9 Perkz, Fodels Forgers and LeageWorks for raising money for charity with these initiatives and to all of you who donated.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
