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Pledges help cancer fight
Source:
Cranberry Eagle
Written by:
Paula Grubbs
Published:
February 17, 2010
A 2007 Seneca Valley graduate who buses tables on the side never thought his quest to raise money for pediatric cancer patients and their families would get the support of a reality show celebutante.
Pat Howley, a junior at Penn State University, was in late January looking for a way to help his school's student philanthropy group, known as THON, raise money for pediatric cancer. Howley "got bored one day" and began searching the Internet for such a venue.
He stumbled upon abolishcancer.blogspot.com, a site that asks for daily sponsors who donate $1 for each new follower on the site's Twitter account, @abolishcancer. Howley agreed to sponsor @abolishcancer for one day, and was told the site normally gets about 50 new followers per day.
Howley and the site manager agreed the funds raised would go to THON, which sent a Twitter message regarding Howley's agreement with the abolish cancer Web site.
At first, it appeared new followers would be few and far between. Then reality star Khloe Kardashian, who appears with her family on the E! channel's "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," became aware of THON, which is the largest student-led philanthropy group in the world.
Howley said Kardashian had met and befriended a girl with cancer who recently died, and in her grieving process, had heard about THON through a friend.
"She started tweeting about THON and blogged about THON on her Web site," Howley said. "She said to her 917,000 followers that this guy Pat would donate $1 for each follower of @abolishcancer."
Within two hours of Kardashian's tweet, about 600 new followers joined @abolishcancer, the site's Twitter account, and 1,730 followers joined by the time Howley's day of sponsorship expired. The site manager contacted Howley to congratulate him on his awesome response.
"He wasn't exactly sure how I was planning on raising this money because I wasn't anticipating 1,730 people would be following this page," Howley said.
Mildly panicked but ever creative, Howley created a Facebook page the next day titled "Thanks Twitter ... Now I Owe THON $1,700. HELP!" A few hundred people joined the Facebook group, and one of them suggested he set up an online account with PayPal's philanthropic offshoot, www.chipin.com. Howley set up the account on Jan. 30, which had raised more than $600 by last weekend.
A profitable break occurred when a Penn State alum read about Howley's altruistic plight and offered to match what Howley raised up to $3,000. The Penn State newspaper, the Daily Collegian, ran an article about the situation at the same time, and Howley raised $1,000 in three hours.
Howley met his $1,734 goal for @abolishcancer on Feb. 2 and upped the goal to $3,000 to get the full amount offered by the alumni matched.
"It's been pretty hectic, but it's all worked out," Howley said.
He said on Friday he managed to raise $2,700, which will be matched by the benevolent alum at THON Weekend, which begins on Friday.
Howley said another unexpected financial boon occurred when Penn State's Inter-Fraternity Council heard about the story, and volunteered to match the original amount of $1,734.
All tolled, Howley cut a check to THON for more than $6,500, according to the Collegian Web site.
"None of it was expected, obviously, but I am happy that it did and when all is said and done, that's another seven grand that's going go to kids with cancer and their families, plus the awareness it was able to raise (about THON and pediatric cancer,)" said Howley. "You can't put a value on that."
Lauren Bucci, who is on THON'S public relations committee, said the whole affair has raised immeasurable awareness for THON and its purpose of supporting cancer patients and their families.
"It's a really big step for us to reach a larger demographic," Bucci said Thursday. "A lot more people are now looking at thon.org and the THON YouTube page."
She reported after Kardashian's tweet on Jan. 29, the THON YouTube page averaged 2,000 viewers per day last weekend. Bucci wondered whether Kardashian's interest and promotion of THON is because of the loss of her father to a brain tumor when she was just 5 years old.
"Her husband's mother also died of cancer," said Bucci of Kardashian's husband, Los Angeles Lakers forward Lamar Odom.
"It was really unexpected," Bucci said. "We were all really excited to see someone like that willing to support us."
THON donates all its proceeds to The Four Diamonds Fund, which assists cancer-stricken children who are treated at Penn State Hershey Children's Hospital and their families.
Any family with a child being treated for pediatric cancer there is automatically eligible for support, according to the Four Diamonds Fund Web site.
Howley, who has found himself the subject of much attention lately, downplays his new celebrity.
"I was just trying to figure out a way to help abolish cancer."
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