Raysa Williams posted a warning on her Twitter page yesterday: "Just so my
followers know.. I'm gonna keep blasting haitirelief all day, I don't
give $0.02 about any games 2day people need help there!!!"
True to her word, Williams' next dozen Tweets urged people to stop by the ScionLab at 18th and Oak between 3 and 5:30 p.m. to drop off supplies desperately needed by victims of the massive earthquake that devastated Haiti's capital city, Port-au-Prince, last Tuesday.
Though the efforts at the Scion Lab were organized on short notice, Kurt Kloeblen made sure there was nothing slapdash about it. Kloeblen is the managing web editor at KCTV 5, which raised $100,000 in a fund drive the previous Friday for Heart to Heart International, an Olathe-based nonprofit organization that delivers aid to disaster areas all over the world. Kloeblen told The Pitch that he'd wanted to do more, so earlier in the week, he'd reached out to his Twitter followers, asking who'd help him put together a grassroots, single-day donation center. There, people short on cash could still help by donating their time or smaller, practical items. Many of his Twitter connections were with people he'd never met face-to-face.
Williams was one such Twitter friend. She offered to hit up her network
of contacts in the local music scene to round up some free
entertainment for the day. Her friends JT Quick, a radio personality from KPRS 103.3, jumped at the chance, as did Garrett Hannon (aka DJ GTrain) and Nick Clarke (aka DJ Yady).
The DJs are connected on Twitter, but hadn't all met in person, either.
They hauled their own sound equipment into the ScionLab and provided
the soundtrack, as Sunday's big NFL match-ups played on mute from the
venue's flat-screen TVs.
the day, nearly 100 volunteers buzzed assembly-line style over long
folding tables, separating donations into smaller plastic baggies that
will serve as individual care packages. Each contained a hand towel, a
washcloth, shampoo, 10 bandages, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a comb,
soap and a soap dish. Kloeblen estimates they filled 30 large boxes
with 250 kits apiece. He plans to deliver the boxes to Heart to Heart
today, and estimates that the aid organization will have the supplies
on the ground in Haiti by mid-week.
As the event wrapped up and
people began hauling the folding tables, leftover pizza boxes and trash
out of the ScionLab, Williams joked that she'd probably driven a few
people crazy with her Haiti-related Twitter blasts. At midnight last
night, she Tweeted, "Big thank you to my followers who put up with my #KC4Haiti tweets,4 those that hit "unfollow", oh well I hope u @least made a text donation."
Volunteers
aren't supposed to expect anything in return for their hard work, but
at this Twitter-mediated drive, a few virtual friends gained some real
ones.
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