Hi-Rez Drops Video Highlighting One Special Contribution To This Year's Spring Fling Charity Event

Every year Hi-Rez Studios hosts the Spring Fling. This special charity event takes place in the company's Alpharetta, GA offices and is a several-hour live stream dedicated to raising money for that year's organization of choice. Sometimes it's Make-A-Wish. Sometimes it's the Red Cross. Other times it hits a bit closer to home -- such as raising money to help a member of the SMITE community fight cancer.

This year, the company went with Make-A-Wish again. (They're big fans of that organization.) But the story here isn't just the Spring Fling itself... That happened a few months ago. Instead, it's about one of the goals met during the event and what prompted it.

As with any charity event, Hi-Rez sets milestones. If the community raises enough money to hit a milestone, something specific will happen -- like devs having random containers of gross stuff dumped on them. This year, one of the really big -- and kind of surprising, to be honest -- milestone events was that Senior Esports Producer Nick "PrettyHair" Keogh agreed to cut off his long locks. (Seriously, I was shocked. I mean. Look at his name.)

As it turns out, however, Nick had a really personal reason for agreeing to this. You see, his brother Anthony -- who also happens to work for Hi-Rez as a Content Producer in their Skillshot Media branch -- was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia when he was 16.

Luckily Anthony beat his illness, but not without a lot of sacrifices and help from the rest of his family. So, for Nick, the cutting of his hair was more than just a milestone for the Spring Fling event. It was also something more personal. The long hair he'd been cultivating for a while was being grown for donation purposes. Now it's in the hands of Wigs for Kids, who will see that it goes to good use.

You can see the video below. Just be sure to grab some tissues and prepare an onion cutting story. And, if any of you feel like donating directly to one of the charities mentioned in this post, you can find links above.