• Steven Spohn, chief operating officer (COO) of AbleGamers, has raised more than $1 million for the SpawnTogether initiative to combat social isolation through video gaming.
• Spohn, who lives with spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), launched the campaign one year ago to celebrate his 40th birthday.

Pittsburgh resident Steven Spohn was diagnosed with SMA — an inherited condition that affects nerves and muscles — before his first birthday. His mother was told he had just months to live.

Steven Spohn (AbleGamers)

Now, the COO of AbleGamers — a nonprofit charity working to combat social isolation through video gaming — is celebrating one year since his SpawnTogether initiative raised more than $1 million for the foundation.

As Spohn’s 40th birthday approached last year, he sought a way to celebrate the occasion doctors once thought to be impossible. (He joked that he “could have had a midlife crisis” and purchased a fancy car, “but that would require money and the ability to get into a car.”)

So, on Sept. 15, 2020, Spohn launched SpawnTogether — an initiative challenging the gaming community to raise $1 million for AbleGamers. He met that goal, and then some: SpawnTogether raised $1.02 million, $300,000 of which was raised in the first week. Thanks to its success, Spohn has revived the SpawnTogether campaign this year in hopes of turning the fundraising initiative into an annual effort.

That money goes toward advancing the nonprofit’s goal of “creating opportunities that enable play in order to combat social isolation, foster inclusive communities, and improve the overall quality of life for people with disabilities.” AbleGamers has a Player Panel program through which hundreds of players with disabilities advise the gaming industry. The organization also provides services, including peer counseling and professional development, and conducts engineering and user research.

Spohn and other like-minded gamers see video games as equalizing and an agent to bring people of all physical abilities together. “Back when I was in grade school, my friend introduced me to my first Atari,” recalled Spohn on the AbleGamers YouTube channel. “It was around then that I began to realize that video games were something that I could do just like anyone else.”

Learn more about AbleGamers.