S.O.S. Gamers has launched a crowd-funding campaign for Get Schooled, an initiative that supplies underprivileged schools and community centers in the New York City area with access to educational technology including computers, calculators, and recreational items such as video game consoles and games.

Develop offers an interesting feature on Global Gaming Initiative founder Elizabeth Sarquis, who details why she started the mobile game development studio. GGI will release a new mobile game in May called Sidekick Cycle for $0.99. Sidekick Cycle downhill biking game challenges players to cycle through hazardous levels to deliver bikes to children in need.

Gustavo Zacarias of San Antonio, Texas was one of the winners of the2012 National STEM Video Game Challenge who joined a select group of students that participated today in the third White House Science Fair, an event that emphasizes and celebrates student achievements in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) competitions. The National STEM Video Game Challenge is an annual competition presented by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop and E-Line Media.

The latest Indie Gala bundle offers a bunch of nifty games depending on what you're willing to pay - but the money will go towards "help rebuild Vancouver's game industry" by supporting a political candidate. Vancouver has been hit with a lot of layoffs at many of the region's biggest studios.

Women in Games International (WIGI) and the Girl Scouts of Greater Los Angeles (GSGLA) are now working together to create the first video game patch for Girl Scouts. Scouts can earn the patch by taking part in a special program put together by both the GSGLA and WIGIIGI using various tools to create a game.

The AbleGamers Foundation has won two award from the Multiple Sclerosis Society (MS Society) for its work on creating guidelines that aid game developers in making their games easier to use for those with various physical disabilities. The MS society has awarded the AbleGamers Foundation two awards including the da Vinci award for best product in communication/educational aids for its Includification game accessibility guidelines, and the Leo for People’s Choice.

The National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC) announced the theme for its 2013 Youth Free Expression Film Contest. This year’s theme will be "Video Games in the Crosshairs." The non-profit organization goes wherever it is needed to fight against censorship in the United States. After the Sandy Hook School shooting back in December of last year, politicians at the state and federal level started wagging their fingers at video games as a catalyst for the violent act.

Microsoft has launched the Kodu Game Design Challenge for young children, challenging youngsters to use its Kodu Labs game development package available for free on Windows (and for $5 on Xbox Live Indies) to develop a game. Children between the ages of nine and 18 years-old are eligible to compete.

AbleGamers Foundation announced that its Pachinko for Charity event at PAX East 2013 in Boston over the weekend raised $17,022.09! The group dedicated to evangelizing the need for accessibility in video games for all gamers says that supporters came out in droves, waiting as long as 20 minutes to play even while the lines were three or four rows deep.

Activision's Call of Duty Endowment announced plans to open up a number of chapters around the country using $1.1 million in grant money. They are calling this initiative "Chapterization." The Call of Duty Endowment also announced the appointment of its first full-time Executive Director - Dan Goldenberg. Goldenberg has 21 years of active and reserve military service and currently serves as a commander in the Navy Reserve.

The AbleGamers Foundation has been named a finalist in the MS Society Da Vinci awards for its game accessibility guidelines - Includification. Includification is a 48-page fully-illustrated game accessibility guidelines document for developers to make games more accessible to gamers with various disabilities.

A man sentenced to ten years in prison for robbing two men for $110 and their driver's licenses in 1999 spent a good portion of his time playing chess and developing a new puzzle-based game that uses the classic board game to teach children how to make good choices in life. Nkosi Brown said that he spent much of his time in prison playing chess to avoid fighting with guards and other inmates and during his time in solitary confinement he would play chess with other isolated inmates by yelling out moves and using a chess board scrawled onto the floor.

Eurogamer details a bittersweet story of one Total War: Rome 2 fan who was immortalized in the game, but the 24-year-old named "James" who inspired developers Creative Assembly when he visited the studio, would later lose his fight with liver cancer.

Aksys Games passed along word that it is currently hosting a donation drive in observance of the second Anniversary of the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster. To help those still suffering from the long-term effects of that horrific natural disaster, Aksys is donating a portion of the sales from its online store to the American Red Cross. For every item purchased from March 11 - 15, Aksys Games will donate $5 to the American Red Cross for ongoing relief efforts in Japan.

A new Kickstarter campaign has been launched to raise $125,000 to create a documentary about the "queer side of gaming," or the LGBTQ presence in the game industry and in the gaming community. The documentary is called "Gaming In Color: Queers and Gaymers of the Pixelated World" and hopes to expose the masses to another side of gaming culture - a side that is often hidden among the dudebros and gamer gurls of the community.

Bottomline Guild announced its plans to host a 24-hour online gaming marathon to raise money for Wounded Warrior Project called GamePocalypse 2013. This massive gaming event will take place within the virtual worlds of Rift, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, and PlanetSide 2. Gamers will be participating in events running for 24 hours, starting at 12:00AM Central Standard Time, March 16th, 2013. All proceeds from the GamePocalypse 2013 event will go directly to charity.

Bronies rejoice. Lauren Faust, who is best known for creating My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, has decided to team up with the fan-driven development team Mane6 to bring to life the pony-themed fighting game My Little Pony: Fighting is Magic. Mane6 and toy-maker Hasbro have also been in talks. You may remember that Hasbro sent the develops of the game a cease-and-desist letter which Maner6 quickly complied with. That put their little labor of love on indefinite hold.

Gaming World Wide has teamed up with Rize Up Gaming to bring their charity efforts to a community that believes in creating a positive social atmosphere for gamers of all stripes.

Fundraising for the Humble Mojam 2 Bundle officially closed on March 2, with two charities benefitting from the $517,555.12 raised during and after the 72-hour game jam ended. The Mojam 2 game jam produced several games during its 72-hour run including Vlambeer's Wasteland Kings, Tektonic by Grapefrukt, Space Hunk from Ludosity, Oxeye’s 3918, a 3D multiplayer shooter called Low-light by Wolfire Games, and four games from Mojang teams - Nuclear Pizza War, Endless Nuclear Kittens, Battle Frogs and Nuke the Dinosaurs.

We mentioned this in passing when we reported on EA and other game companies signing onto an amicus brief supporting the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, but the event deserves a little more attention: On March 7 Electronic Arts and the Human Rights Campaign will host an event to address the full spectrum of LGBT issues in gaming in New York City.

The AbleGamers Foundation will return to the Penny Arcade Expo East (PAX-E) in Boston, Massachusetts March 22-24. The organization dedicated to making gaming more accessible to those gamers with disabilities is being sponsored by Paradox Interactive and other game industry companies this year at PAX East.

An anonymous source just donated $100,000 to the Humble Bundle Mojam 2, the latest pay-what-you-want DRM-free bundle. With that huge contribution, the Humble Bundle Mojam 2 has managed to raise just over $252,000.

The charities benefitting from this latest bundle are the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Block by Block - a new collaboration with UN Habitat and Mojang. The news of this massive donation was tweeted by Mojang's Jens Bergensten:

A new game called Depression Quest hopes to raise awareness about the challenges of someone living with depression by using interactive fiction as its medium. The browser-based game was created by Zoe Quinn and Patrick Lindsey and puts players in the shoes of a 20-something as they struggle with their emotions and make daily choices that can either help get them out of their depression or send them spiraling into a state of deep despair.

The developers describe the game as follow:

The AbleGamers Foundation has partnered with Paradox Interactive to help bring video game accessibility to the Penny Arcade Expo East (PAX-E) in Boston, Massachusetts. Each year, the AbleGamers Accessibility Arcade displays the latest assistive technology for gamers with disabilities to play today’s top games with just a little help.

Over the weekend, two Newtown, Connecticut residents opened a family friendly video game arcade in the town called the Sandy Hook Arcade Center (as reported by Polygon). The all-ages arcade is meant to help the town heal and promote family values in the aftermath of the elementary school shooting in December where 26 human lives were lost as the result of a shooting rampage by a lone gunman.

On Saturday, February 16th at 6:00PM EST gamers from Storm Unity will be running a 24-hour Mega Man marathon event to benefit the Child's Play charity. The marathon will be streamed live over Twitch.TV at twitch.tv/stormunity.

The AbleGamers Foundation announced today that it is joining forces with Gaming World Wide to further its mission of fighting for more accessibility for disabled gamers from game and console makers.

In case you didn't get the memo, this week is apparently Gamer Safety Week, according to the Merchant Risk Council's Gamer Safety Alliance. This week marks the second annual awareness campaign to draw attention to gaming account safety with the hope of teaching the community about the ramifications of having their online identity compromised (hint: it's real bad).

Indie developer Imminent Games is giving 20 percent of every sale of its game Drip Drip to the Robin Hood Hurricane Sandy Relief Fund through the entire month of February. Drip Drip is described as a 2D strategy game about "saving buildings from extreme weather conditions" for Mac and Windows PCs using water simulation gameplay and a time management challenge.

This Reddit thread reveals a grand and charitable deed that Bungie did for a very sick little boy in Seattle, as detailed by The Escapist. According to the Reddit thread, Seattle-based Reddit user fiscal_ reached out to Bungie asking them to send something to his five year old son who was in the process of getting a liver transplant.