If you haven’t heard of Stack-up.org, you should definitely take a peek. This unique charity combines the need to care for soldiers deployed to combat zones with a love of video games to provide services for veterans in a unique and exciting way.
The charity is getting some pretty significant reinforcements, specifically in the form of Cliff “Cliffy B” Blezinski, founder of Boss Key Games and former Resident Id at Epic Games during the Gears of War era. Blezinski has signed on to work with the charity as part of its advisory board.
“Cliff and I have been talking about working together to help veterans for years, but the timing just never seemed to work out,” Stack-Up founder Stephen Machuga said in a press release. “Between Cliff’s starting Boss Key and my starting Stack-Up, the timing couldn’t be better!”
Blezinski isn’t the first game industry veteran to work with the charity; he joins the ranks of Oculus Rift creator Palmer Luckey and Dean Hall, creator of the DayZ mod for Arma II.
Stack-Up is a unique charity in that it seeks to support soldiers and veterans both back home and while deployed in combat zones. One of the pillars on which the organization is founded, its “Supply Crates” initiative, is a program that actually delivers game consoles and video games to overseas military bases, offering much-needed relaxation and decompression in the soldiers’ downtime. The organization also sponsors initiatives to send veterans to major industry events as special guests.