A 140-Character Story to Warm Your Heart

A few days ago as I was browsing the news, a New York Times article caught my eye and as many things around me have been doing recently, reminded me about this class and the social media phenomenon that we have been trying to make sense of.  The short article, entitled "A Life on the Streets, Captured by Twitter" featured 44-year old Derrick Wiggins who is not only a native Brooklyn-ite and Giants fan, but has also been part of the homeless community for many years now.  It told the tale of how Derrick was given a pre-paid flipphone to tweet regularly about the challenges he overcomes on a day-to-day basis--many of these things we take for granted such as eating a hearty meal, taking a warm shower and sleeping with heat and thick blankets.  To this day, Derrick has garnered over 5,500 followers and still tries to respond to most of his followers who wish him a good luck and send their prayers day by day.

Derrick Wiggins, @awitness2011

Through Underheard in New York, a non-profit organization that focuses on homelessness awareness, Derrick and a few other select individuals (Danny, Albert, and Carlos) were provided pre-paid cellphones to regularly tweet from anywhere in the city about their life without a home.  The organization was founded a month ago by three graduate students interning at a NYC PR firm who have always wanted to do something to help the homeless community in their city, but had limited resources of their own to do so.  In spite of this, they honed the power of social media and decided to take this unorthodox approach at activism by helping homeless residents of the city gain a voice of their own.  Their mission: "...use their social media presence to create real interaction and make them a part of our global community."

Since reading the NYT article about a week ago, I have been following the UnderheardinNY website and checking to see how their Twitter stars are doing.   Lately, I've started to notice that I wasn't the only one in my circle of friends doing this--a friend of mine on Facebook recently posted a link to the site on his own profile, and some Tweeters on my network who I told about this also started following Danny (who, personally is my favorite) with me.  What a great example of how word of mouth really spreads like wildfire!  And that's not all--as the buzz about this organization continued to grow, so did the opportunities for these men: a few days ago I noticed they were starting to get invites to job interviews, people were tweeting to welcome them to their homes for a meal, and Derrick was even given a ticket to see the NY Giants from the money raised by his Facebook and Twitter followers.  However, the most incredible story happened a few days ago when Danny was finally reunited with his daughter and his two grandchildren for the first time after losing contact with them ELEVEN years ago.  (DISCLAIMER: Get ready to shed a tear or two...)

Celina blogged a few weeks ago about Spent, a great interactive website that also features homelessness awareness, and I believe this is another wonderful example of how social media can be used to greatly advocate a cause and tackle an entrenched societal problem.  Although critics argue that social media tools have made us lazy activists (or rather, slacktivists), I believe that allowing Danny, Derrick, Carlos and Albert to speak for themselves through  Twitter and thus rebuild their lives on their own is worth much more than giving them $1 on the street.  Don't you?  If you agree, I invite you all to spread this story and revel in the power 140 characters has in restoring someone's life and opening many windows of opportunities.

"It's a great moment," said Danny Morales when asked about meeting his daughter.  "I feel rejoiced.  I never thought it would be this way... It's so beautiful."

*Keep up to date on what's going on in UnderheardInNY through their Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube pages.*