Celebs, citizens, companies mix new and old to help Haiti - Feature

Los Angeles - It takes a lot to put George Clooney in the shade, but that's exactly what's happened in recent days with fundraising for Haiti. The global superstar is working on a telethon to raise cash and awareness for the devastated Caribbean nation, but long before even a single camera has rolled on the high profile celebathon, private citizens and companies are rushing forward to donate millions of dollars to the effort.

Clooney's plans call for a celebrity-filled help-fest that will air next Friday on all MTV channels worldwide as well as on ABC, NBC, HBO and CNN.

But concerned citizens and companies are not waiting for an appeal from the stars. Many have for the first time reached for their mobile phones and by texting a few numbers have sent millions of dollars to aid organizations working to relieve the plight of the desperate Haitian people.

"I felt I had to do something," said California schoolteacher Pasquale Scuderi, who sent around an email message to all his friends Wednesday urging them to donate and telling them how to go about it.

He called on them to work their Facebook and Twitter contact lists and to send the message on to all their friends in a bid to reach 200,000 people. His logic was unassailable.

"If a video of someone falling on their ass can garner millions of hits on YouTube, we can get a fraction of that to help with this, can't we?" he wrote.

The most successful of these efforts saw the Red Cross raise over 8 million dollars by Friday with money pouring in at the rate of 100,000 dollars per hour.

All donors needed to do in the US was text the message HAITI to the number 90999 and the sum of 10 dollars was added to their phone bill and sent to the Red Cross.

Other countries have similar arrangements. In Sweden, for example, four telephone companies said they would would scrap the text message fee after the Swedish Red Cross raised 1.3 million kronor (200,000 dollars) and the Swedish branch of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) about half that sum.

In the US, the Yele Foundation, founded by Haitian-born musician Wyclef Jean, raised over 2 million dollars through a similar texting donation service.

"There is an enormous outpouring for this effort," Wendy Harman, social media manager at the Red Cross told The New York Times. "It's such an easy way to give and pass around through social sites on the Web."

The mobile donations were being coordinated by the Mobile Giving Foundation which collects the money from cellphone carriers and passes it on to the designated cause.

"The concept is to make mobile giving as easy as possible," said Christian Zimmern, the foundation's vice-president. "It's easily the most successful campaign like this we have ever seen."

He praised US carriers for cooperating with the foundation, and stressed that they were passing on 100 per cent of the money they received without taking anything for their own costs.

While new media types celebrated yet another example of how new technology was changing the way the world works, the old ways of doing things were also remarkably effective.

Companies from all sectors of the economy loosened their long tight purse strings to donate cash and services. Citigroup pledged 2 million dollars towards relief, while General Electric promised 2.5 million dollars. Other big corporate donors included UPS, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, biotech company Amgen and Google.

Royal Caribbean Cruises, which sails to a luxury private resort on Haiti's northern coast, said it would return there as soon as possible taking paying guests as well as humanitarian supplies aboard its fleet of luxury liners.

While Clooney prepared his TV special, other stars were forging ahead with their own initiative. Hollywood's ultimate do-good couple Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt got the ball rolling with a million- dollar donation on Wednesday.

On Friday supermodel Gisele Budchen pledged 1.5 million dollars, People.com reported, while Madonna gave 250,000 dollars.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/304032,celebs-citizens-companies-mix-new-and-old-to-help-haiti.html.