Boston bombing Crowdfunding success

by Startacus Admin

It’d be fair to say that very little good has come from the Boston bombings in the States. Apart from the tales of individual acts of bravery and kindness, it’s hard to find many positives in the terror that unfolded last week.

However, here at Startacus there are two ‘positive’ elements of the whole situation which really grabbed our attention so we thought it only right to highlight them. Perhaps you can share these tales too and maybe even get involved yourself, if you can.

Crowdfunding platforms, more commonly known for raising capital for your creative projects or business startups, have had a deluge of campaigns set up in recent days to raise money for individual victims of the bombings. As both news sites and social networks picked up on these efforts pretty quickly, some of the crowdfunding campaigns have raised considerable amounts of cash in only a couple of days. It was through @startsomegood’s Twitter account that we first became aware of it here at Startacus.

The Celeste & Sydney Recovery Fund on gofundme.com had (as of Saturday morning) raised over $450,000 for Celeste and Sydney who were badly injured in the blasts at the Boston Marathon on 4/15/13. Sydney suffered severe injuries as a result of being hit with shrapnel and Celeste has lost both her legs below her knees.

Over at giveforward.com the Ann and Eric Whalley Recovery fund had raised over $100,000 of their $200k target - Ann is currently in the ICU with numerous severe external wounds but in stable condition and Eric has suffered brain trauma and damage to his legs, and will need several follow up operations including a serious neurological operation later this week.

There are plenty of other crowdfunding campaigns going on to support the victims and it might be worth a hunt around the main crowdfunding sites to see if and how you can still get involved. Of course, as CNN also reported, beware of false accounts being set up.

Over in the UK and with the London Marathon happening this weekend, it’s also positive to see that there has been an upsurge in donations to those who were running the Marathon for charity.

Being a self starter isn’t just about doing something with ‘that idea’ you’ve always had, and these types of endeavours offer us a positive reminder that there are self starters everywhere; running, raising money and reminding us all what good we can all do.


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Published on: 21st April 2013