19-year-old college student Danni Messina was inspired to donate money to charity during the holidays when she found out about a good friend spending Thanksgiving in the hospital with his grandmother.
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is her sorority's designated charity, Messina took to Twitter to rally her followers to raise funds for the hospital. On November 25, she posted a tweet saying she would donate 25 cents for every favorite and 50 cents for every retweet received.
One day later, the tweet exploded receiving tens of thousands of retweets and favorites. The amount soared beyond the budget of a college student who just wanted to help, reaching more than $221,000.
So instead of going back on her word, she launched a GoFundMe page on November 26th to get donations for St. Jude with a goal of $50K. That page has reached over $86K as of this morning. If you want to help and donate, check it out here.
She also made sure to donate $1,000 of her own money to help the cause.
This was the biggest contribution she could make financially but she also continued her work by enlisting some bigger people to help outside of the GoFundMe page.
Like K-Mart along with St Jude.
Richard Shadyac Jr., president and CEO of American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC) said in a statement,
"St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is grateful for the giving spirit demonstrated by millions of big-hearted people like Danni who help make it a reality that no family will ever receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food. Danni’s intentions are pure – and while she has learned a lesson on how quickly a moment can become viral, she also reminds us of the power and importance of helping others and how contagious that spirit is in this season of giving thanks. With our long-standing partners such as Kmart, Tri Delta and others, who over the years have demonstrated extraordinary commitment and generosity, we are working to enable Danni to fulfill her beautiful intentions to help the kids at St. Jude.
(ALSAC is the fundraising and awareness organization for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.)