Thirty years ago today, six young people stepped into the Gold Mine arcade in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, set a bucket next to an Asteroids machine, and took turns playing for the next five straight days, raising money for a family in need. This very well may be the first recorded videogame charity marathon in history.
The participants — The Hill high school students Dan Arch, Jan Trunzo, and Rob Kovach, along with friends Andy Galamba and Bruce Walters — played in four hour shifts, and accepted donations for the family of 18-year-old Leo Wampole, who died Christmas day of pneumonia complicated by cerebral palsy. Remarkably, none of them had ever even met Wampole.
