A lot of my articles recently have been rants about one thing or another. Quite often, this attracts the wrong sort of attention, with people who disagree with me choosing to vent their displeasure in childish and unacceptable ways. Writing on the internet will always entail the risk – and often guarantee – that a certain subset of readers will choose to twist your words, call you names or otherwise distort or disparage you or your work. It shouldn’t have to be that way, but malicious trolling is (for now) just something that needs to be dealt with, usually via ignoring or moderating it appropriately.

But I know that these people are just the vocal minority; a subset of the wider, much better gaming community. I know this because gamers are among the most awesome people in the world. Despite the words and actions of a few, gamers continue to prove just how generous and kind they can be. The latest evidence of this can be seen in the case of Sarah Hamilton.

Best known for her role as April Ryan in the adventure game series “The Longest Journey”, Sarah has had her fair share of personal challenges over the past decade or so. After being diagnosed with both Multiple Sclerosis and cancer within a couple of years of each other, she has gone on to develop back problems that have required surgery. Put simply, the stress of this (coupled with ever-mounting bills) caused a relapse of her MS, which is putting a dent in any effort she can make towards healing.

So Sarah asked for help. She launched a GoFundMe page, hoping that people would be generous enough to donate a few dollars here and there towards her medical costs. Until a few days ago, the total pledged to support her was sitting at around $3000, with the goal being set at $13,800. After a few gaming websites posted the issue, this soon changed.

At the time of writing, the total raised for Sarah is sitting at $13,562.

Now of course, I’m not saying for a moment that all of this cash has come from solely gamers. There’s going to be a good chunk of this support that’s come from people who’ve never picked up a controller in their lives. But I don’t think that Sarah could have reached this amount without the help of some of her fans and others who simply love games in general. In recognition of the gaming community’s help, Sarah has posted a as her April Ryan character, thanking them for their kindness. She has also re-adjusted her total to include all of her medical bills, just in case people end up being more awesome than they already are.

As someone whose life has been touched by MS and loves The Longest Journey series (and is looking forward to the Kickstarted Dreamfall: Chapters sequel coming later this year), I donated what I could to Sarah and wish her all the best. But donating that money doesn’t make me feel nearly as good as being among the group of people who came to this woman’s aid when she asked for help, glad to give it to her. So for every troll or griefer out there, remember that there are hundreds of other awesome people to drown them out.

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