An Edmonton actor from the locally-produced Mass Effect video game series is supporting a charity to help the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

Mark Meer, local improvisation and stage actor, is perhaps best known as the voice of the male Commander Shepard in BioWare Edmonton's critically-acclaimed Mass Effect 3.

Reached in England before the Die-Nasty 2013 London 50-hour Improvathon he's starring in, Meer said he was happy to be a part of the Gamers for Sandy Hook fundraiser.

"Gamers for Sandy Hook got a hold of me and obviously, it's a very worthy cause," said Meer. "I think that maybe it does fall to us as gamers, and maybe people in the video game industry, to show our support for the victims of this tragedy."

After the Dec. 14 shooting of 20 children and six adult staff members at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, a group of avid video gamers decided to raise $5,000 for the Sandy Hook PTA Organization.

Meer said other actors from video games have also joined the cause. Kate Drummond, a voice actor from Ubisoft's Splinter Cell, and Elias Toufexis from TV's Alphas and Supernatural, are also supporting Gamers for Sandy Hook.

As a former school teacher, Drummond said the shooting is a "nightmare scenario" and wanted to help any way she could.

"Being involved in the video game industry, I felt it was important that if there was a way to use that passion to reach out to people," said Drumond. "This town has been tragically affected and they're raising money for memorials so I think if we have the means to help, we should."

Violent videogames like those Drummond and Toufexis star in were in part blamed for the shooting; an idea both stars wanted to refute.

"People like to point fingers at these games and say they're the root cause of violence like this so I think it's important to show them that not all gamers like us are violent psychopaths," said Toufexis in a YouTube video supporting the fundraiser.

Mass Effect composer Sam Hulick will be giving away signed copies of the game's soundtrack to random donors and the top donor will get a date with Meer over Skype.

Meer is a core company member of the Canadian Comedy Award-winning live improvised soap opera Die-Nasty.

To donate, visit GamersforSandyHook.wordpress.com.

matthew.dykstra@sunmedia.ca

@SunMattDysktra