Perhaps you missed a new phenomenon in the wake of the Haiti earthquake. It is hard to find something positive to say about such a disaster, but $22 million dollars was donated to the relief effort in just five days through the use of text messaging.
(www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june10/haiti4_01-18.html) That amount of money is staggering, and is a huge component of a charitable wave that eclipses the response to the tsunami of the past decade.
Robert Lowe, a Red Cross spokesman said, “I need a better word than unprecedented or amazing to describe what’s happened with the text-message program.” What we’re seeing here is a virtual earthquake in the charitable donation business comparable to the earthquake it rallies around. Every now and then something happens that really hits you over the head with the message that we really are in a new age. Unlike a lot of those messages, this one happens to be beneficial.
By Myron Gushlak
