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Introduction

    GameHearts is a public benefit nonprofit corporation based out of Kalispell, Montana, in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Our primary goal is to provide safe and sober recreational activities for adults by providing alternative gaming activities, primarily Customizable (or Collectible) Card (sometimes called Trading Card Games) and Miniature Games, also known as CCGs, TCGs and CMGs. We provide this service free of any mandatory charge by soliciting donations of excess gaming materials to give away to our participants.
    Essentially, GameHearts offers recreational therapy as a community-based option, promoting community-minded sobriety during otherwise prolific times of alcohol and drug use, particularly during evening hours. We are not a 12 step program, nor do we require paticipants to completely abstain from drugs or alcohol in their daily lives. Instead, we promote the ideal that while out in the community, one should be able to socialize without being intoxicated.

    GameHearts presently meets twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays, at The Boiler Room, 525 8th Street East in Kalispell.  Typically, our events run from 5:30 to 11pm, though we reserve the right to end an event early if attendance does not demand our presence.  For this reason, if you plan to attend after 7pm, please call Ron at (406) 871-3893 to let us know you are coming.

    To learn more about our program or how you can contribute to our cause, please visit the links available from this and subsequent pages.
    On behalf of all of us, thank you for your interest!

Special Announcements

    January 19, 2012:   Dona has called off GameHearts for tonight on account of the weather.  Hope to see everyone Monday night instead!  Just as a reminder and possible incentive, we will also be holding our Board meeting at 5:30, so the event may start late, but it will give anyone interested a look behind the scenes of what goes on with the management of the program!  Again, hope to see everyone there! 

    December 26, 2011:  With the approach of the New Year, it is important for our participants to renew their pledges to our program.  No, we don't have annual memberships or support drives of that nature, yet we do have a certain level of commitment needed to keep the program alive.  Simple things like a pledge to attend with some degree of regularity, offerings of assistance in organizing incoming donations, or bringing others into the program are significant to maintain the program as we all wish it to be.  For instance, in recent months, we have seen a sharp drop in attendance, even having nights where noone is even showing up.  This leaves Dona and Ron with mandatory attendance with no rewards.  It is important to understand that we have a dedicated site for events twice a week because the owners of the Boiler Room see a need for our program - if we cannot demonstrate attendance, we cannot maintain the site. So please keep these thoughts in mind when you set your New Year's resolutions: If GameHearts is important to you, please pledge to support the program so we can continue to offer our services into the New Year and beyond.

    December 15, 2011:  Monday's (December 19, 2011) event has been cancelled due to our Gaming Director being unavailable for this evening.  Normal events will resume on Thursday.  Hope to see everyone there!

    November 28, 2011:  Ron Glick, our Executive Director, is proud to announce the publication of his epic fantasy novel, One.  Published as the first of a nine book series, the novel tells the story of Nathaniel Goodsmith, a reluctant Avatar sent into the world after nine swords capable of slaying Gods in order to aid in the battle between two rival pantheons of Gods.  Epic fantasy at its best - and all proceeds have been permanently endowed to GameHearts, so any sals of the novel will go directly to aid our program.  Please take the time to review the book here and then go to Amazon.com to purchase your copy of this landmark book today!

    September 28, 2011:   For those of you participating in our program, you have known this is coming for a couple of months, but tomorrow night it finally arrives:  World of Warcraft TCG is making its debut as a supported game for GameHearts!!  That's right - WoW joins Magic:TG, Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, L5R, Star Trek CCG and Dragonball Z as a game you can come down to learn for free, get a free deck, and chances to earn more free stuff just for playing!  Won't you join us for some safe and sober fun with our newest game, WoW? 

    September 8, 2011: GameHearts provides free incentives for our players by providing Clicks for both wins and losses in games, redeemable for more free cards beyond the starting decks.  Until now, the Clicks have been maintained by our Gaming Director in a log, but effective today, the Clicks have been upgraded!  Thanks to Jim Pierce Promotional Products of Kalispell, GameHearts now has tokens to represent our Clicks in 1, 5, and 10 Click increments.  What this means for the program is that players will now be responsible for their own clicks, but will also be able to freely exchange their clicks between other participants rather than seek oversight of our Gaming Director.  We are all very excited by this new resource for our program and look forward to distributing these new Clicks in abundance!

    August 15, 2011:   A personal letter from a former GameHearts participant:

Greetings all!

I thought that I would take the time to write to you all and let you know that I am alive and kicking still out here in KY! It was defiantly a transition, but I survived. Many things changed, but change is always there, ever present, ever waiting. Two days after getting back from the SCA event I originally came down for, Chad (A very close friend) lost his job. With that, not only did I hit the ground running for my own source of income, I also became an anchor for him to hold onto in order to stay sane. It the insuring turmoil and chaos, I was able to teach him how to play Magic. : ) He picked up on the game rather well, and I still have yet to beat him (The best I've done in the 30+ games we've played was stall him with my white deck :/) About 3 weeks into this, I found my first source of income, and have not looked back. While yes, it is not steady, it is contributing to the household, and relieving a lot of stress off of everyone. Chad was hired on at Sears about 3 weeks ago, so is adjusting to that (not all that well.), and life is settling back into a normal pace.

It was almost 2 years ago that I met Ron, and got involved with Gamehearts... While yes, we have had our ups and downs, I have never regretted it. Over the course of this time, I have come to realize a lot about myself, and my habits I have. I was able to realize that I, too, had addiction issues that I needed to take care of and fix. My road for that started in Oct. of 2009... Yes, while I was gone, I did relapse, and I take the responsibility for that, and that started my road to recovery over. Fourteen days ago, I celebrated 1 year without using any substance, and approx. 7 months since I drank last. And I honestly can not say I would have be able to do it alone. If it wasn't for the support that I got from this program, and it's participants, I never would have been able to come to terms with my addiction, nor want to take any steps to improve myself.

I wish you all the best in your own personal lives, and I hope that someday we will be able to see each other again!

Tom Austin
August 15, 2011

     Tom has served as Gaming Director, as well as a regular participant during the course of his participation in our program.  We are extremely pleased that Tom is doing well with his life and that he has benefited so positively from our program.  We wish him all the best in all his future endeavors!
 

Credits

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