Penny Arcade's Child's Play, a five-year-old fundraising outfit that started out dedicated only to the Seattle Children's Hospital, has now evolved into a full-time charity drive.

Child's Play is now extending its reach throughout North America and five countries. Major online retailer Amazon is also giving Child's Play a boost-up by letting participating hospitals create wishlists of items to give to children.

Gamers who choose to give a helping hand can donate fun stuff to the kids, like video games, audio CDs, and other related cool stuff. There's also the annual Child's Play Fundraiser Dinner auction on December 11 (that's a Tuesday), a semi-formal event with a dinner, and live and silent auctions. The proceeds will go directly to participating hospitals.

There are also other ways of helping out through Child's Play, like grabbing the exclusive custom-made console and handheld mods which dedicate part of its sales to Child's Play fundraising effort. It's a win-win pay-off: children in need are happy, while gamers get to take home epic customized units of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass DS or Metroid Prime 3: Corruption Wii.