Killer Instinct player and Fighting Game Community (FGC) member Terrance “PushaTee88” Moore collapsed on Thursday evening while participating in Super Arcade’s The Runback weekly tournament.

Video-game themed military charity Operation Supply Drop announced the launch of a new mentorship program to support veteran-owned businesses, with a focus on the video game and entertainment space. The goal of the program is to encourage other veterans to look at starting their own businesses after returning home from a long deployment overseas.  HeroCrate is the first veteran-founded company that Operation Supply Drop has partnered with as part of this mentorship program.

NASCAR driver Brad Keselowski will be playing video games against fans next Monday at the Texas Motor Speedway to raise money for the Texas chapter of Speedway Children’s Charities. The competition is part of the charity's "Who’s Got Game?" fundraiser.

At the end of last week, Tommy Refenes - one of the co-creators of the indie hit Super Meat Boy - held a three night fundraising event to raise money for his sick mother. On Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, Refenes took to Twitch to play and stream Red Dead Redemption, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, and Grand Theft Auto V in the hopes of helping his sister raise $15,000 to get their mother a diabetic alert dog.

Tommy Refenes, one of the co-creators of the indie hit Super Meat Boy, is hosting a fundraising event on the evenings of October 9, 10, and 11th to raise money for his sick mother. Specifically, Refenes says that he is trying to raise enough money to buy his mother a diabetic alert dog because she is having a difficult time with her type 1 diabetes.

Military-focused video games charity Operation Supply Drop has announced a new partnership with UMG Gaming, a veteran-owned provider of LAN events, eSports infrastructure, and hosted competitive gaming tournaments. The first fruits of this new partnership will come to fruition at UMG Nashville, an eSports event to be held on October 10-12 in the Nashville Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center in Nashville, TN.

The Entertainment Software Foundation was honored earlier this week by ThanksUSA for providing grant money that directly benefits the ongoing educational needs of the spouses and children of United States armed forces personnel serving around the world. ThanksUSA describes itself as a non-partisan, charitable effort to mobilize Americans of all ages to "thank" the men and women of the United States armed forces and also provides college, technical and vocational school scholarships for the children and spouses of active-duty status military personnel.

Our very own Andrew Eisen details what he'll be doing to support the Extra Life charity this year in a brand new video. This year, leading up to a big 24-hour gaming marathon, Andrew plans to stream gaming sessions every Wednesday at 8pm PST (that's 11pm EST on the East Coast) beginning tonight.

His 24-hour marathon will officially begin on Saturday, Oct. 25 at noon PST.

Bandai Namco Games America has teamed up with the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) for Breast Cancer Awareness Month with the launch of its Ms. PAC-MAN Pink Ribbon Campaign. Headlined by special DLC featuring Ms. PAC-MAN, this effort is aimed at raising funds for NBCF to help women with early detection, education and support services related to breast cancer.

The GoFundMe funding campaign for writer Tom Chick, founder of the popular gaming site and forum Quarter To Three, who has a rare form of stage 4 cancer, has managed to raise $22,211 from 338 people in five days. The campaign has another five days to go if you are interested in helping Tom out.

In a recent update to the GoFundMe page for Tom, PR ninja Stephanie Schopp (who works for Tinsley PR) expressed her surprise and joy that so many in the video games industry, press, and gaming community have helped Tom out in his hour of need:

Last year, with the help of the gaming community and companies like Sony Online Entertainment, game-related charity Extra-Life raised more than $4 million dollars to help battle serious ailments affecting children like cancer and cystic fibrosis. This year SOE has renewed its commitment to the cause with the goal of making 2014 a banner fundraising year for the charity.

PR ninja Stephanie Schopp has launched a GoFundMe funding campaign for writer Tom Chick, founder of the popular gaming site and forum Quarter To Three, who has a rare form of stage 4 cancer.

Rovio has teamed up with Room to Read, a non-profit literacy advocacy group whose goal is to promote reading and gender equality in Asia and Africa. For the next two weeks Rovio will offer a "Good Deed" coin as an in-game purchase for Angry Birds Epic. Rovio will donate $1.40 from each $3.99 purchase to Room to Read to help drive its initiatives abroad.

We often see appeals for people to donate to Child's Play, the charity started by Penny Arcade founders Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins, but it's not always clear where that money eventually ends up. But Wane.com offers a good example of how the money donated by the very generous gaming community to Child's Play directly benefits children in hospitals locally.

Comedian Will Ferrell has launched an Indiegogo campaign for "Will Ferrell's SuperMegaBlastMax Gamer Challenge," which lets backers donate money to cancer research for the chance to play video games with Will Ferrell in San Francisco on Oct. 26 for a few hours. The event will be broadcast live on Twitch. Ferrell is looking to raise $375,000 in order to make the event a reality. Here's more from his Indiegogo campaign page:

UK-based gamer charity SpecialEffect announced the winners of SpecialEffect Soccer Fives and that it managed to raise a cool £3000 for its ongoing mission of helping individuals with disabilities find new and exciting ways to play video games. The soccer event took place last Friday in the shadow of Wembley Stadium, with the Sports Interactive (makers of the Football Manager series) team winning the 2014 SpecialEffect Soccer Fives Trophy by beating out RuneScape maker Jagex.

Tabytha and David Armstrong, long-time World of Warcraft players (who play on the Eldre’Thalas server), recently found out just how wonderful Blizzard and the vast community that plays its long-running MMO truly is. Of course, the couple already knew that. Last week David Armstrong posted a heartfelt thank you in the World of Warcraft forums to the game’s developers for the game, which has impacted he and his wife's life so dramatically over the years.

Voting has opened for which UK-based charitable organization GamesAid will support this year through various fundraising efforts. You can help them by visiting this link and casting your vote for one of the following charities. While GamesAid is a gaming-focused charity, the organization hands out donations to a wide variety of worthy causes.

This year's candidates are:

Mental health charity Take This is returning to PAX Prime again this year with an AFK Room and a special panel led by the group's founders and other contributors.

"PAX has been a huge part of the success of Take This in being able to reach those who need help dealing with mental health issues in the greater video gaming community," said Take This president Russ Pitts. "It's an honor to be able to return to the show in an expanded role, and to hopefully help more people and spread more awareness about these very important issues."

Military-focused video game charity Operation Supply Drop has announced The Indie Ammo Box, a digital online store that will offer specially created "name your price" indie video game bundles and an assortment of individual games for sale.

All of the proceeds from this special storefront will go towards building care packages filled with video game software, equipment, and accessories for U.S. military personnel stationed overseas and those recovering from combat injuries in military hospitals around the world.

The limited edition PlayStation 4 auctioned off (by retailer Tradera) as part of Stockholm, Sweden's recent week-long Stockholm Pride Festival kicks ended, generating thousands for the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights.

Dedicated server hosting company RapidSwitch is helping to make a 72-hour Minecraft marathon to benefit AbleGamers this weekend a reality. The company announced that it is sponsoring the event by providing the server hardware and connectivity to enable CreeperHost to run MineThon, a worldwide online fundraiser for AbleGamers, a charity that champions "includification." - making games accessible to gamers who have disabilities.

UK charity SpecialEffect will receive over £10,000 in funding thanks to runners in the recent British 10k. Those participants who ran for the charity include staff from Disney, EA, Microsoft, Rare, IGN, New Star, Firefly, Green Man, and Bandai Namco. All of the companies helped raise that final total, which will go towards the charity's goal of helping those with disabilities.

Bethesda announced today that it has teamed up with the American Red Cross to host a blood drive during its annual QuakeCon event. QuakeCon takes place this year at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas.

The blood drive is inspired by Tango Gameworks' upcoming horror game, The Evil Within - which is set for launch on October 21 for Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PS4, and PC.

The blood drive event is being called "The Good Within Blood Drive," and will take place July 18 and 19 at QuakeCon.

Jennifer Ann’s Group continues to use the medium of video games to promote awareness on the dangers of teen dating violence. Today the nonprofit organization announced the winners of its seventh annual "Life. Love. Game Design Challenge" - as well as the results of its first-ever game jam to create a game that championed its cause of stopping teen violence.

Arma III maker Bohemia Interactive has managed to raise $50,000 for the Red Cross with DLC that started out as an April Fool's Day joke. Bohemia Interactive announced that its Arma III's April Fools' Day joke that became content add-on has brought in 1m Czech koruna, around $50,000 USD, for the Czech Red Cross.

Bohemia and also briefly discussed the success of the military shooter franchise's new approach to DLC.

Purchases from The Humble Store have generated more than $1 million in charitable contributions to various charities, according to the Humble Bundle organization. Humble Bundle launched its Humble Store in November 2013 as a digital storefront for titles across Android, Linux, Mac and Windows PC.

Speed Demos Archive and SpeedRunsLive revealed the dates for their next big Twitch-based charity event, Summer Games Done Quick. Beginning June 22 and running until June 29, a group of friends will gather and try to play and finish a variety of games as quickly as possible, in order to raise cash for Doctors Without Borders. Twitch will stream marathons of the playthroughs throughout the week.

Teen dating violence prevention group Jennifer Ann’s Group announced today that artists, game designers, and developers in Atlanta and Moscow will take part in the 2014 Jennifer Ann’s Group Game Jam the weekend of June 20th – 22nd, 2014. The 2014 Jennifer Ann’s Group Game Jam charges participants with creating games that help teenagers deal with emotional health, wellness issues, and issues related to teen dating violence.

Goat Simulator developer Coffee Stain Studios and Escape Goat series developer MagicalTimeBean have launched an initiative to benefit charity organization Heifer International to bring animals to poverty-stricken communities in the world.