My friend Meg Rayner is a journalist at The Courier in Ballarat (Victorian Country Town). In March, Meg reported about an upcoming auction for a local girl Layla Wright who has been battling cancer for the past 2 years. Through Meg's article she turned the projected small auction into a grand event which helped raise $20,000 for Layla, this allowed Layla to achieve her one wish of going to Disneyland and help pay for her chemotherapy. Meg last year was a university student, this year she raised $20,000 for a child in need, WOW!!!!
As Bloggers we are in fortunate position to have the time and reach to a large audience which sometimes can rival traditional media. What we do with this ‘time/reach’ is up to us.
Some blogger that are already giving back is Gavin Heaton and Isadore for Article 39 Concert and Body Shop Activist Blogger Adam Valvasori who blogs purely about bringing about social and environmental justice.
What other bloggers do you know who are giving their time to promote great causes?
5 comments:
Very special story, mate.
$20k! That is fantastic.
We all feel that we could do more, but often feel that commitments to charity can over extend our finances. There are other ways to help -- as you suggest, by getting involved.
On the flip side, bringing together a community of people to raise money means that a small donation by many can achieve a large result. That's where social media comes in.
Hey Gavin,
I think you are right on the money, however I think it is a two step process rather than the power of community giving and the power of influential content providers being separate entities.
Getting information to a community needs an active/influential member to bring it to the attention of others. For years journalist have held this position within the community now we are seeing bloggers also gain this credence.
The only difference being with online is that the community is more visible and can interact with each other in a public/permanent forum (blog comments, facebook fan pages, discussion boards aka social media). However I think that we still need influential people to get the message to these online communities. Bloggers are now playing this role.
Jye, It was an amazing story and just unbelievable the difference we can make as content providers (journalists and bloggers).
Thank you Jules.
It became a bit of an obsession really when the donations started rolling in and the community got behind it, it became really special.
She's a very sweet little girl and her mum is switched on.
That is one of the major benefits of working at a rural paper. We have the time to invest in those personal stories that turn into series and have the chance to connect with our readers.
It's been awesome starting a blog with The Courier too because it's the first one we've had and it's refreshing to offer our readers something different than just the usual daily paper.
I am keen to spend more time online though and really build on the blog and other ways of distributing news and stories to readers.
You're my inspiration Jules!
I miss you living all the way in NSW, come home!
Meg
Oh Meg
You are awesome! I think you should move up to Sydney and work on one of the major newspapers up here. ;)
I think you bring up a good point in the fact that it is almost like you can keep a conversation going on through the rural paper, which is great. Less of a broadcast channel (which is great!).
I look forward to hearing about more of the amazing stuff you are doing!
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