BBCH Extra Life Hero: Meet Mark!
It’s no secret that I love our Extra Life program at BBCH, but it’s mostly because of the people. Our Extra Lifers are awesome! I’d like to introduce another one of our amazing gaming community members making a big difference #ForTheKids at The Barbara Bush Children’s Hospital (BBCH)!
Meet Mark, AKA Maineah_Gameah!
Hello! My name is Mark Blaschke, better known as the Maineah_Gameah online. I’ve had the privilege of raising money for Extra Life the last few years. I’ve been part of a few different groups in that time period: GameStop, where I worked for almost 9 years, Rooster Teeth Maine, with whom I raised money for BBCH for the first time, and most recently, the content creator team I am now working with, Original Human Geek. Luke (Original Human) is the head of the operation, and Dan (32Barrest), Ste (BasketCase1989), Sajid (Arkninjas), and myself are all his streaming partners and content creators for Original Human Entertainment LLC. We’re on both YouTube and Twitch:
- Youtube (where we will soon have DAILY uploads)
- Twitch (Original Human Squad 12pm-2pmEST Mon, Wed, & Fri. Individual streams throughout the week- links in the names below)
We try to have a good selection of genres and different content on the Geek Channel. My videos dive into the lore and hidden stories of games like Halo and Destiny, Sajid and Dan do some silly content with games like Don’t Stop Talking and Nobody Explodes, Luke is doing some horror content, and Ste is our Playstation exclusives player. Our streams mostly consist of shooters like Call of Duty (Warzone being our regular game), Halo, and Rainbow Six Siege, though we occasionally do party games like Jackbox, Among Us, and UNO.
Mark’s WHY: My connection to BBCH is quite personal. Back in 2017, my wife Brianne was pregnant with our 2nd child, Nathan Alan Blaschke. Unfortunately, she was suffering from hypertension and it was negatively affecting the pregnancy. Her doctors transferred her care to Maine Medical Center in Portland after the first few weeks of the pregnancy. After a series of unfortunate events, at 26 weeks, Brianne had to have an emergency C-Section, and Nathan was born on November 23rd, 2017, long before his February due date. The doctors at the BBCH NICU department were are fantastic to work with, they gave us straight answers and information every step of the way through treating Nathan. They tried everything they could think of to help Nathan survive. After 6 grueling days, Brianne and I decided together with the doctors that any further treatment would just continue to torture him, so we decided to let him go. They sedated him, and we were able to sit and hold him in our arms without any tubes or IVs for the first time. He gently passed away from this world on November 29th, 2017. The help didn’t stop there though. The staff helped us through every process. They allowed us space to grieve, brought a priest in to help us spiritually, helped up start contact with the funeral home of our choice to help start the funeral process, and most surprising of all, they waived all fees for Nathan’s care to help our financial situation.
I feel so blessed to have had the pleasure of being helped by such a wonderful team of people. This is what has motivated me throughout the last few years to try to give back what I can. When the Original Human team was looking for fundraising ideas, I immediately suggested Extra Life to raise money for BBCH, and all of them were 100% on board. We started raising money in August with a $2000 goal. As of today (September 23rd), we are just shy of $1300 with just over a month to go, and a big day planned for community day on November 7th. We’ll be on a rotating schedule playing all kinds of stuff, including some new content that I’m not allowed to share yet.
Mark’s message to all Extra Lifers: I hope to read about some more amazing groups soon, and I thank you for allowing me to share my story. Keep up the wonderful work and I look forward to continuing to work with you in the future.