Game On owner Tristan Whitworth plays a video game with a child. Photo from Tristan Whitworth
By Leah Chiappino
Despite his business facing its own financial struggles, Tristan Whitworth, the owner of #GameOn Video Games, with locations in Smithtown and Miller Place, is donating a $1,500 grant to a neighboring small business.
The Shoreham resident made the announcement on #GameOn’s Facebook page June 2.
“We would like to help. Here is our story; let’s hear yours,” the post reads. “We did 10% of our normal sales through the store during the quarantine and we were lucky and appreciative for even that. In fact, we were one of the lucky small businesses that were able to make it through this unscathed because we were able to sell our products online. Many local businesses were not so lucky … These are not people trying to make millions, but people just trying to support their families. I know $1,500 isn’t a lot, but it’s what we can give and [the grant] may help someone [in a big way].”
#GameOn, which first opened its Miller Place location in 2015, specializes in the buying and selling of retro video games, action figures and collectibles. This isn’t the first time the local business has given back to the community. A 2017 TBR News Media Person of the year, Whitworth has previously hosted several game nights for special needs children, all for free.
When approached for an interview, Whitworth humbly said he didn’t think the grant was “a big deal.”
“I was just driving to work one day, and saw the roads were empty, no one was out, and I saw vacant signs for rent — everywhere,” he said. “I don’t know it, it just hit me.” He was then contacted by a former high school classmate, Elizabeth Vogel, Elizabeth Vogel, who agreed to match the grant using funds from the Frank and Deborah Giving Tree, a memorial fund in honor of her parents.
“We were pretty poor, when we grew up,” she said. “We were on welfare and food stamps and all of that, but my parents, no matter what they had, were always giving to everybody. My dad would have given you the shirt off his back or his last dollar.”
Whitworth will decide on a winner of the grant in the coming days.
Game On hosts a night out for bowling and pizza with friends. Photo from Tristan Whitworth
By Jill Webb
Out of the 366,574 children residing in Suffolk Country, 2,445 of those children live with autism, according to a report in a three-point plan put out by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) to address the disorder.
In an effort to give support to the intellectual and developmental disabilities community, several residents of Suffolk County have increased outreach in their areas.
Kids get their kicks
Rocky Point’s boys varsity soccer coach Joe Camarda, along with the girl’s coach, Pete Costa, created an opportunity for mentally and physically disabled kids to become athletes when they started Rocky Point’s TOPSoccer league in 2016.
Summer Netburn races around the soccer field in Rocky Point TOPSoccer. File photo by Desiree Keegan
Camarda and Costa, as teachers in district, understood the needfor families to have special needs programs in their backyard, instead of having to search Long Island.
“We see it every day,” Costa said. “It’s extremely important for students with special needs to be socialized and it’s a good opportunity for them to interact with their peers.”
By working with the Long Island Junior Soccer League, the coaches host eight to 12 kids with varsity Rocky Point players volunteering to help out on the field.
“They can’t wait to come and help on Saturdays,” Camarda said of his varsity players.
As well as being a fun activity for the children, it is also a way for the varsity players to become educated on what it really means to have a disability.
“Truth is, that a lot of times they’re not in school with them, they’re not in class with them,” Costa said. “So, it’s an opportunity for them to learn what it’s all about.”
Putting the children in a field setting where there’s no pressure to perform, while also giving them the ability to develop their motor skills is a win-win for parents and their kids.
Camarda sees the dedication his athletes have to soccer, despite their disabilities. Rain or shine, they’ll be on the field with smiles on their faces, according to Camarda.
“The feedback we get from the parents is that they’re talking about it all week,” he said. “They can’t wait to get here.”
In the future, they hope to put on a Special Olympics-style tournament, potentially called the Special World Cup.
“The community should provide opportunities for everybody regardless of what your needs are,” Costa said. “That’s what we’re here for. We’re here to help each other out.”
New friendships from old games
Game On owner Tristan Whitworth has opened the doors of his business to local special needs children who have bonded over a love of retro games.
“I basically just noticed that a lot of parents would come in with a child, or sometimes two, on the autism spectrum,” Whitworth said. “The parents would come talk to me and they’d say something like, ‘I don’t get it they’re so into these retro games and none of their friends are.’”
“The parents would come talk to me and they’d say something like, ‘I don’t get it they’re so into these retro games and none of their friends are.’”
— Tristan Whitworth
Retro video games and toys is exactly what Game On, with locations in Miller Place and Stony Brook, supplies its customers with. Whitworth loved seeing kids enjoying his games, but wanted to do more for them by connecting them to each other.
“We just had a huge customer base of all these children that loved the retro games, but they never had asked to hang out or see each other,” he said. “They would only play alone at home.”
Whitworth decided to host a game night for his customers to provide them an opportunity to make new friends. After a trial run held at his store, he decided he needed to upgrade venues. After contacting a couple local churches, he found his fit with North Shore United Methodist Church in Wading River.
Whitworth’s events became The Autism Social Club & Game Night in October 2016, a free monthly event that brings together autistic children, and all others with disabilities.
While Whitworth and his staff volunteer at each game night, Whitworth credits the parents as a big help in running the event, which hosts about 20 kids. All ages under 18 are invited, but Whitworth says most of the attendees are 10 to 15 years old.
Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart are two of the most popular games among the kids.
“They really love the four-player games for GameCube and Nintendo 64,” Whitworth said.
Some of the best moments, according to Whitworth, are when the kids give him a hug goodbye, and normally nonverbal children try to say “Thank you.”
The community’s need for programs like this is apparent, as Whitworth notices enrollment go up every month. .
Whitworth has even started organizing some outings for the group, like sponsoring 20 kids and their parents to go out for a night of bowling and pizza.
Bridging the information gap
In December 2015, Priscilla Arena and Stephanie Mendelson met up for a business meeting, but ended up discussing the lack of local resources for both of their young, autistic sons.
After confiding in each other, the two Mount Sinai mothers decided to take matters into their hands by starting Suffolk Aspergers/Autism Support & Information.
SASI founders Priscilla Arena and Stephanie Mendelson at a fundraiser. File photo by Kevin Redding
“We talked about how we felt fairly alone in that diagnosis and that there really weren’t a lot of local resources out here in Suffolk County for parents like ourselves,” Mendelson said.
Their first meeting was spurred by a Facebook post scouting out local parents who felt the same.
“Just like the child feels alienated, isolated, alone and misunderstood, so do the parents,” Arena said.
The group took form as 12 parents in a living room discussing issues, and since its first get-together, has grown into a free program of over 2,000 members.
Arena and Mendelson’s mission is based around providing education and knowledge — helping parents find out where their children can attend school, where they can live in their adult life and where they can find careers are just a small handful of questions SASI answers.
“We want to be a central resource for parents to go to no matter where they are in the diagnosis process, and even if the children are older,” Mendelson said. “A place to go to look for recommendations for doctors, services, advice, resources, and then of course emotional and financial support.”
Monthly support group meetings are held at John T. Mather Memorial Hospital in Port Jefferson, with relevant informational speakersproviding similar information on getting access to services, finding psychologists and learning what support is available through the state.
“The best resource is actually the parents that come,” Mendelson said. “They share with each other things that have worked for them.”
SASI organizers pride themselves and the group in making members feel comfortable and catered to, because the directors were in the same boat.
A girl enjoys a SASI camp experience. File photo by Kevin Redding
“Our members refer to us as a family, and we’re slowly but surely changing the perception of the ASD population” Arena said. “That is something that no other autism organization has been able to accomplish, and that is because Stephanie and I are in the trenches face-to-face doing everything that they’re doing. There’s no detachment — we are walking, living, breathing the same thing.”
Mendelson and Arena recently launched SASI in Español because they noticed a stigma in the Latino community when it comes to discussing developmental disabilities and mental illnesses.
“The Spanish speaking community,
especially here on Long Island, has been so underserved and so ignored when it comes to resources,” Mendelson said.
One of the pair’s favorite programs SASI offers is a birthday club.
“Unfortunately a lot of these kids don’t get invited to regular birthday parties, so every month we throw a birthday party where they can all come and celebrate in a judgement-free atmosphere.”
At one birthday party, a child had a meltdown in the middle of the party, prompting the parent to get embarrassed and apologizing to everyone, but in response, was told by every other parent that she wasn’t alone.
“When I’m tired, or I feel like, ‘Wow, this is taking over my life,’ those are the moments that propel me forward,” Mendelson said. “They make me realize why this is so important and such a gift to do.”
Autism Social Club & Game Night attendees show off their Game On T-shirts. Photo from Tristan Whitworth
A local video game store sets itself apart from the rest by giving those with special needs, and their families, a night to call their own.
When Shoreham resident Tristan Whitworth opened Game On, a retro video game and toy store in Miller Place, in 2015, he did so with a few personal missions in mind. Not only did he want to send his adult customers back to their childhood when they entered the door, he also wanted to provide a community-oriented haven for kids with common interests. He envisioned a place kids could hang out, be themselves and play their favorite games together, similar to the comic book stores and arcades he and his friends would rush to after school when growing up.
Game On owner Tristan Whitworth plays a video game with a child. Photo from Tristan Whitworth
So when Whitworth, 31, noticed that a majority of his loyal customers were kids, teens and young adults on the autism spectrum — all separately coming into the store with their families — he jumped at the opportunity to set up an event where they could all meet one another, make new friends and form a bond.
“At first, I started a little trial thing here at the store on Fridays where we had pizza and I told certain families to just come in, play games and hang out with us [the staff],” he said. “The kids just started communicating with each other, and the parents started to communicate with each other. The kids exchanged phone numbers and even started having appointments to hang out. It blew my mind.”
In October 2016, the trial gatherings officially became “The Autism Social Club & Game Night,” a once-a-month and completely free Game On event held at North Shore United Methodist Church in Wading River, where young people on the autism spectrum, as well as those with Down syndrome and other disabilities, can enjoy some independence and play a variety of games with their siblings, parents and friends old and new.
On the last Friday of every month, Whitworth and members of the store’s staff venture to the church and set up tables, TV’s, and a wide range of game consoles from Super Nintendo to Sega Genesis to Playstation and Atari in a giant room for the game night, hosted between 7 and 9 p.m.
Those who are sound-sensitive, or don’t like video games, can pick from a large selection of board games like Trouble and Chutes and Ladders, and healthy foods, like fruit and hummus, are served to help boost better dietary habits. While about 10 kids showed up on the first night, Whitworth said there are up to 25 kids and parents that now attend and the event is only growing.
Autism Social Club & Game Night kids smile for a group photo at the North Shore United Methodist Church in Wading River. Photo from Tristan Whitworth
“I love it, I’m obsessed,” Whitworth said of the event, for which he’s made T-shirts and a logo consisting of puzzle pieces inside a brain. “The biggest thing for me is to make sure [the kids] know they’re not alone. Some don’t have others they can relate to or have friends with common interests. At the last game night, four kids who had only met through this event organized their own little thing where they each brought in one video game and they sat in a circle and played with each other. The parents didn’t organize it, I had nothing to do with it, they just communicated with each other and that was awesome.”
Dani Sanford, a Game On employee and game night volunteer, said the event has been great for her younger sister, who has Down syndrome.
“She socializes more, everyone there is so sweet to her, so welcoming and [friendly] and so my mom loves bringing her there,” Sanford said. “She usually just plays solitaire and games she can play by herself, but now, she’s actually looking forward to playing with other people.”
Sound Beach resident Samantha Netburn and her four children have been going to Game On ever since it opened, developing a close friendship with Whitworth and being a huge reason the event was thought up in the first place.
With two of her children — Jeremy, 15, and Summer, 14 — on the spectrum, Netburn said the family looks forward to the game night every month.
The owner of Game On, located at 465 Route 25A in Miller Place, started the game night for kids with special needs. Photo from Tristan Whitworth
“It’s really amazing, Tristan’s such a good guy and he’s so good to the kids…it’s nice to get together and sit down with other kids and just have a good night for a few hours,” Netburn said. “It’s cute how the kids all have these friendships now and look forward to seeing each other. There are kids out there that don’t play with a lot of kids and don’t know how to…so they have this.”
Summer, who spends most of her time at the game night socializing and getting to know everyone, has broken out of her shy shell since attending the event.
“At Game On, I like to talk to new people and ask them questions like, ‘what school are you in?’ or ‘what kinds of stuff do you like to do?’ and it’s nice to talk to them about themselves,” Summer said.
Jeremy said he’s always gravitated towards the older games because they “have a lot more character” and rely heavily on “strategy and thinking,” and thinks playing video games with others is an even more connective experience than playing sports.
Pastor Hal Low of North Shore United Methodist Church said as a father of two sons on the spectrum, he was quick to respond to Whitworth’s call asking to use the building to host the event.
“I was on board from the moment he came to me with the idea,” Low said. “I know my sons look forward to it every month and it’s an opportunity for them to socialize and have fun in an environment with their peers and other people who are understanding of autism.”
Whitworth said while he hopes to start up a second game night in the future, he’s happy to have provided kids who love to get their “game on” with a place to go.
Game On is located at 465 Route 25A. For more information about Game On or the game night, call 631-821-GAME (4263) or check them out on Facebook at www.facebook.com/gameonmpgamenight/.
