Stay in and Help Us Event This Weekend

Comments 6 by Rebecca Bollwitt

Instead of hitting the town this Saturday night one group is encouraging you to invite some friends over for a Boggle tournament or to pop some popcorn and melt into your couch for a night of movie watching.

“Social Media for Social Change (SM4SC) serves as an example of how social media can bring together people from all around the world together to change society in a big way. The premise of SM4SC is simple — to take all the connections made through social media, and put them together to host first-class fundraising events happen “in real life”. SM4SC’s fundraisers benefit local charities in cities around the United States.” [SM4SC]

This weekend’s SM4SC event, Stay in and Help Us, will allow everyone (regardless of geographical location) to have a lovely night at home while supporting a cause in the New York area called City Harvest.

With the downturn in the economy on both sides of the border charitable donations are low, however every person can do their part to make a big difference with even the slightest contribution. SM4SC Co-Organizer Meg Fowler explains, “Many of my friends that make this complaint also go out to lunch all the time, or for dinner several nights a week, or buy multiple $20 martinis on the weekends. I definitely don’t have a problem with people going out to have fun, whether they’re doing shots of Patron, or going for cheap wings — but I think they forget that even a small portion of those expenditures could do wonders for a charitable organization. One cosmopolitan bought at a trendy bar = a few days of meals for a family of 4.”

Meg’s small idea has snowballed into quite a big deal, and thank goodness. “… I had a little mini brainwave: what if I asked people to stay home one Saturday night, and contribute their entertainment money to our cause? Or go out — but match what they spent and give it to us? We kept brainstorming, and before we knew it, we had a URL.”

You can join Meg calls a “worldwide pajama party” on Saturday March 7th 2009 by following along on on Twitter, join the event on Facebook, or stay tuned to the site for updates and Ustream video.

“I think it’s a model pretty much any charity could replicate,” said Meg. “Since it doesn’t require anyone to do anything but skip a single night out — and give some money they weren’t planning on saving, anyway! In fact, I’m sure we’ll end up doing one of these nights for every event we do for Social Media for Social Change going forward.”

In Vancouver we’ve done a few events like this, that were as equally spontaneous and effective, from Twestival to the great TweetupHeatup. Now it’s time to look at other cities, their initiatives, take part, and also see how we can bring their interesting campaigns back home. It’s easy to participate, and to find a cause to support, and things like this end up connecting us all.

“Your small sacrifices — one less dinner out, one less movie, one less concert, one less drink — can make a huge difference to people in need.”

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6 Comments  —  Comments Are Closed

  1. GlennFriday, March 6th, 2009 — 7:39pm PST

    What a cool idea! Thanks for posting this.

  2. MegSaturday, March 7th, 2009 — 9:32am PST

    Thank you so much for promoting this, and asking me about it. You are linked up on our official site. 🙂

  3. CraigSaturday, March 7th, 2009 — 11:23am PST

    I’m curious if there is a comparable organization in Vancouver. I’ve heard of City Harvest before and I think it would be a great service in Vancouver where there is so much wasted food at Hotel Banquets and Set Catering.

  4. isabella moriSaturday, March 7th, 2009 — 10:24pm PST

    what a great idea! i absolutely have to see what these people are up to!

  5. MegSunday, March 8th, 2009 — 12:08pm PDT

    Just as a quick follow-up, we were able to raise $1,300 in individual donations last night, and more is still coming in. It was awesome.:)

  6. Social Media for Social Change | sm4sc.com Blog Archive | » How Staying In Helped SM4SC and City HarvestMonday, March 9th, 2009 — 6:28pm PDT

    […] site so people could get more information. She invited other bloggers, like fellow Vancouverite Miss 604, to help spread the word. She created a hashtag to aggregrate the various tweets. Really, Meg […]

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