Over the past week starting Saturday 21st March, esports organisation Team Liquid has hosted a marathon stream dedicated to raising funds for charity Direct Relief.

Titled the Quarathon Charity Marathon, Team Liquid hosted back-to-back streams with numerous players from the organisation, including Dota 2 player Samuel “Boxi” Svahn, CS:GO’s Russell “Twistzz” Van Dulken and more.

A number of prominent Twitch streamers took part too, including Peter Park who raised $7,300 by wearing a dog costume and shaving his head.

Fortnite pro Thomas “72hrs” Mulligan rounded off the stream on Sunday 29th March, adding another $5,600 to the total pot in three hours.

Following his stream, Team Liquid announced the Quarathon had raised $77,178 in total for Direct Relief.

Over $77k raised for @DirectRelief... I am speechless🥺



Thank you so much to all the players & influencers who streamed, everyone who watched/donated, our partners and my team at @TeamLiquid for making this possible💙 truly one of the coolest projects I've ever worked on!! pic.twitter.com/j3FdbAi2aj — LIQUID | Sandra 🍒 (@whanderlust) March 30, 2020

For Hearthstone player Ryan “Purple” Murphy-Root, who raised over $4,000 in the marathon, the chance to stream for charity felt like a way to give back to community.

“I hear every single day from my viewers on my stream that they have been quarantined, and they thank me for streaming during the difficult times,” Purple told GINX TV. “I’ve given up going to the gym, restaurants and so on and haven’t gone out since the start of February.

“At least streaming gives me the opportunity to interact with my friends and play some video games and forget about the state of the world.

“Every single day I am anxious that my friends, my father, my brother are able to stay safe. Every single day I am anxious my Twitch community stays safe. The charity stream was a great opportunity to be able to express that.”

Asked how he’s dealing with self-isolating, Purple added: “How I am dealing with isolation is probably not great to be honest.

4k+ MMR streamer's wonderful twitch community raises 4k+ for charity. thanks for the turnout, tonight was a wonderful stream. thanks @TeamLiquid for putting together the Quarathon <3 pic.twitter.com/zniZaliBlL — Ryan Murphy-Root (@Purple__HS) March 26, 2020

“I just try to stream as much as I can because it makes my anxiety temporarily go away and I do know some people’s lives are getting better because of it.”

It isn’t the only stream marathon to have taken place to support victims of COVID-19, with Twitch raising $2,766,857 for the virus Solidarity Response Fund for WHO with Twitch Stream Aid.