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Maycie Belmore is Senior Content Marketing Manager at Torq, where she helps lead content strategy across the blog, social, and website. Maycie focuses on SEO and AEO content and turning complex topics like agentic AI and security automation into clear, practical content for security teams. Maycie is also a voice for the Torq brand through video, live webinars, and events.
Some days remind you why you do what you do, and sometimes that has nothing to do with your actual job.
Torq For Good is our internal initiative to give back to local communities around the world. It builds on Torq’s previous investments in supporting young people and the next generation. This October, it sent my colleague Bob Boyle and me to Johnson City, Tennessee, to join something really special at Niswonger Children’s Hospital. It’s rare to have such an incredible opportunity to do something we don’t get to do every day. And I’m so thankful to work for a company that makes an effort to make a difference.
Torq teamed up with Gamers Outreach, a charity that empowers hospitalized families through play, to donate GO Kart multi-platform video gaming stations that roll right up to a patient’s bedside. Both GO Karts are permanent for the hospital, so patients can keep playing long after our visit. Gamers Outreach’s programs, including the GO Karts, support more than 350 hospitals and deliver over 8.4 million gaming experiences each year.
Playing a video game might seem like the most ordinary thing in the world. But when a hospital stay keeps a child from school, birthday parties, and everything else that makes childhood feel like childhood, a game becomes something bigger. It gives them a chance to feel like a kid again.
Our co-founder and CEO, Ofer Smadari, said it best:
“Our team knows what great technology can do, but the best of it brings people together. For a child in the hospital, a video game is more than a game. It’s a way to connect with others, and forget for a little while where you are. Partnering with Gamers Outreach to put GO Karts in Niswonger Children’s Hospital is our way of giving back to a community that matters to us. We hope these patients and their families get a morning full of fun, and that the GO Karts keep that fun going long after we leave.”
– Ofer Smadari, Co-founder and CEO, Torq
Meeting The Team
Bob and I kicked off the morning at Niswonger Children’s Hospital, part of Ballad Health and the only children’s hospital in the region. It serves children and teens across East Tennessee and Southwest Virginia with state-of-the-art medical care in a family-centered environment, and it has been the region’s Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals affiliate for more than 30 years. There, we met Rodney Rhodes, the hospital’s Child Life Manager, and Jessica Fuller, the Media Relations Manager.
Next, Shanna Talaban from Gamers Outreach showed us around the GO Karts. These medical-grade video game kiosks are built for hospitals. Each one comes with Xbox and Nintendo Switch consoles, a monitor, controllers, and games, so patients can enjoy play as therapy during their hospital stay. Best of all, both GO Karts now live at Niswonger Children’s Hospital, so the kids there can keep playing every day, not only on event day.
The event also drew local media. Reporters from ABC TV affiliate WJHL News Channel 11 and Johnson City Press stopped by to hear about the joint initiative between Torq, Niswonger, and Gamer’s Outreach. I’d like to thank our fantastic PR agency Highwire for their help in creating community awareness for all the great work Niswonger and Gamers Outreach do.
Everyone welcomed us so warmly, and their excitement to have us there was obvious. We even got to meet Rigby, the hospital’s therapy dog. He roams the hallways and bedsides and arguably has one of the most important jobs in the hospital.
Bedside with the Bravest Kids I’ve Ever Met
Then came the part I’ll carry with me the longest. We spent the day having bedside conversations with kids between the ages of 4 and 15. We built rapport, laughed, and passed out custom-made Niswonger Children’s Hospital + Torq t-shirts.
Seeing these children show so much bravery and strength through illnesses they shouldn’t have to face at such a young age was tough. But when we wheeled in the GO Kart and their faces lit up like Christmas Day, our hope came true: these kids got a moment to feel like kids again.
That feeling stayed with me all day, especially when I met Isla, one of the younger patients I spent time with. She was new to Mario Kart Racing but after a quick lesson and a few giggles, she picked it up, and by the end, she was beating me!
Rodney Rhodes, the hospital’s Child Life Manager, told WJHL that a gaming system can turn a day full of missed school and missed birthday parties into the highlight of a child’s week.
And Bob and I watched that happen in real time.
Giving Back Matters
Stepping out of our cybersecurity world and into a completely different one to give back showed me exactly why Torq For Good exists. Torq’s funding made this day possible, and it shows how businesses, nonprofits, and healthcare providers can work together to support hospitalized children, their families, and a wider community.
“True community support means showing up where it matters most. Thanks to our partnership with Torq and Gamers Outreach, our patients get an incredible experience filled with gaming, excitement, and shared fun. Bringing gaming right to the bedside brings so much joy to our children and reminds them how many people across Tennessee are working to help support their healing.”
– Rodney Rhodes, MHA, CCLS, Manager of Child Life Program at Ballad Health Niswonger Children’s Hospital
I’m grateful to work for a company that wants to make a difference. Torq spends its days protecting enterprises from security threats, but it also invests in the communities around us. Being part of Torq’s initiative of giving back, and traveling to Johnson City, Tennessee to see it firsthand, was a once-in-a-lifetime experience that Bob and I will carry with us forever.
Thank you to Gamers Outreach, to Rodney and the team at Niswonger Children’s Hospital, and to every patient and family who welcomed us in. We hope the GO Karts keep the fun going long after we leave. They’ll stay right there at the bedside, ready for the next kid who needs it.
Want to read more? Check out the coverage from the Johnson City Press and WJHL (also on MSN).
