UNF Students and Alumnus Found PWN! Charity Event

 Joanna Norris, Associate Director 

Department of Public Relations 

(904) 620-2102 

 UNF Students and Alumnus Found PWN! Charity Event 

            Team PWN!, a student gaming club at the University of North Florida, is hosting PWN! from 6 p.m. to midnight, Friday, Feb. 4, in the Student Union Ballroom, Building 58W, Room 3703, in order to raise money to aide an international children’s charity. 

PWN! is a new gaming charity event founded and developed by UNF students, including seniors Sam Smith, Ian Kochevar and Chelsea Rose, as well as junior Patrick Duffy and UNF alumnus Casey Ayers. Gamers will have the opportunity to harness their passion for gaming to help others and get involved in the community. All proceeds from the event will benefit Child’s Play, a charity that provides toys and games to more than 70 children’s hospitals worldwide.  

“This is a great opportunity for both UNF students and Jacksonville at large to get involved with a charity that brings smiles to the faces of children in very difficult circumstances,” said Smith, president of Team PWN!.  

For the inaugural event, PWN! will host several video game tournaments, featuring the “Call of Duty,” “Madden,” “Forza Motorsports,” “Rock Band” and “Super Smash Bros.” franchises. Tabletop game tournaments and an array of board games for casual players will also be on hand at the event.   

Tournaments will cost $10 for the first entry, $5 for additional entries, and $1 per “Rock Band” song. PWN! is made possible thanks to the generosity of GameStop, which is providing the gaming equipment for the event, as well as the support of several UNF students that are allowing their personal equipment to be used. 

“We’ve been thrilled by the support we’ve received for our inaugural event,” said Ayers. “PWN! will be unlike anything seen before in Jacksonville and will offer gamers from throughout the community the chance to come together while raising thousands of dollars to place toys and games in children’s hospitals around the world.” 

The event will also feature food catered by Moe’s Southwestern Grill, Chick-fil-A and Libretto’s Pizza. More than $850 in prizes and gift cards to local businesses will be distributed to the top players in each tournament as well as to participants in a raffle. The event is expected to host more than 150 students/young adults and raise several thousand dollars for the charity. 

Since 2003, over 100,000 gamers worldwide have banded together through Child’s Play, a community based charity grown and nurtured from the game culture and industry. More than $10 million in donations of toys, games, books and cash for sick kids in children’s hospitals across North America and the world have been collected since Child’s Play’s inception. For more information about Child’s Play, visit http://childsplaycharity.org.  

For more information about the PWN! event, contact Sam Smith at (904) 449-9738. 

-UNF-