Meet the 'gaming grandpa' taking on 12-hour streaming challenge for charity

A 53-year-old man who live-streams his Minecraft and Fortnite antics will be doing a special 12-hour gaming marathon to raise money for an important children's charity.

Steve Fletcher previously managed to raise over £1,500 split between Cancer Research and the British Heart Foundation when he did a 24-hour stream on his Gaming Grandpa YouTube channel last year. It attracted viewers from as far as the USA and Hong Kong.

On Saturday, November 16, he plans to stream himself playing video games for 12 hours straight from 1pm GMT other than breaks for drinks and the toilet. This time he is raising money for When You Wish Upon a Star which provides special days out for children with life-threatening illnesses.

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He is hopeful his community of more than 10,500 subscribers will be supportive once again. Steve told Grimsby Live: "It's a 12-hour stream and I'll be playing games where people can join in and take part as well as support the stream as well. I've set up a Just Giving page and there will be a link on that in the stream."

He added: "The channel started probably about six years ago and I've always been a lover of video games. It was my granddaughters who had the idea of setting up a YouTube channel and they also picked the name. That's how it began.

"I play just about anything and everything. I play games that are popular with other people so people can join in. I've got quite a big community so we all play games together like Minecraft and Fortnite and things like that."

He added: "If people can donate and support the stream it would be great. I'm looking forward to it. The last one was 24 hours which was tiring towards the end but 12 hours is a lot better. Hopefully, it will be a good stream."

Last time, Steve, from Immingham, said there were people who stayed with him through the whole 24 hours which he described as "humbling".