Streamers Against Cancer is returning this weekend for its third year, promising 24 hours of non-stop charity events to raise money for the Sarcoma Foundation of America. We spoke to the project’s organiser, Jack (a.k.a. fatratlive), about how this project came to be, and what’s in store for this year’s event!
Streamers Against Cancer didn’t originally start out as the massive undertaking it is today – it started with a Twitter (now known as X) post. “I put out a tweet a few days after Technoblade’s passing,” Jack tells us. Technoblade, a Minecraft YouTuber widely beloved in the community, died in 2022 from sarcoma, a rare form of cancer affecting bones and soft tissue. “He was one of my favourite creators and such an amazing figure in our community, and I wanted to do something to honour him.”
“The Sarcoma Foundation of America was chosen as our charity because it was the one the late Technoblade was raising money for before he passed,” Jack continues. “I figured this would be the best way to honour his legacy – as well as it just being an amazing cause.”
“I didn’t expect a ton from my tweet, but the community showed up in numbers I didn’t expect at all,” Jack says. “My plans for the event involved me and a few friends streaming for 12 hours to raise maybe $500. After the huge amounts of support and over 200 creators interested in the cause, we changed it from 12 hours to 24 hours and it became a huge thing. The first event blew all my expectations out of the water, raising over $3,000 for charity.”
With more time and experience to prepare for subsequent events, Streamers Against Cancer has changed considerably since its first run. That first event included a UHC event, as well as an SMP open to participants for the full 24-hour period. “Besides that, the creators were more or less left up to themselves for content,” Jack says.
“For the second iteration in 2024, I wanted to give our creators something to do, so I started reaching out to events,” Jack tells us. “Unfortunately, most events I reached out to either weren’t interested or the timing wasn’t right. I was able to partner with LoganTime, who at the time was running an event called Dodgebolt Bonanza. We also included the event that I co-own, Creator Conquest. Because we were only able to get two events on board, the rest of the events were random “game nights” hosted by me – including lobbies of Among Us, Jackbox, and more, as well as more organised tournaments on MCC Island and Hypixel Bedwars.”
This year, backed by the experience of the last two events, Jack’s aspirations are higher. “I wanted to have structured events for the entire 24 hours,” he says. “I’m super thankful to the owners of Cosmo Championships, One Shot Royale, Minecraft Bedrock Championship, Isle to Glory, and Creator Conquest for partnering with us to hopefully make this our greatest event yet.”
“Something special we’re doing this year differently is we’re adding additional goals tied to the events to trigger in-game events. All of the event hosts have been amazing working with me to add custom redemptions. I’m super excited to see them play out this year, and I’m excited for all the viewers to be able to interact with it.”
Scaling up the event hasn’t come without its own obstacles. “The biggest challenge I faced when it came to specifically this iteration, was figuring out who to include in each event,” Jack says. “My original goal was to try and include every applicant in at least one event, but we had way too many applicants so we had to narrow it down. Creating seven different event rosters and teams that all feel unique enough was definitely a challenge, but I think the event organisers and I did a pretty good job.”
“Organising an event of this scale is also a challenge in itself,” Jack continues. “Managing 250 creators and trying to stay organised is a nightmare, but we pulled through. One unique thing that was really nice about the amount of creators is that we don’t have to worry about subs. In every other event I’ve hosted, we’ve scrambled to find subs last-minute, but for every single event we have enough subs to replace the entire roster if we needed to.”
“I’m really proud of being able to harbour a space for the community to come together under one event and raise a ton of money for an amazing cause,” Jack says. “We’ve raised over $5,600 so far in total, and I can’t wait to raise that number this year. I want to say thank you so much to everyone involved for giving me this opportunity. Every single organiser, creator, and viewer contributes to making this event the best it can be.”
The event will start on Saturday, 19th July at 1pm BST / 8am EDT, and run through to the same time the following day. You can find out more about Streamers Against Cancer and who’s playing in it over on the campaign’s X, @Streams4Sarcoma. You can donate to their Tiltify campaign here.
About The Author
