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Photo courtesy of the Gonzalez family
Three-year-old Lucas Gonzalez has hyper IgM syndrome — a rare condition which means that his immune system is unable to protect him. He is unable to do a lot of the things a child his age might not think twice about doing because even the smallest issue could seriously threaten his life.
A bone marrow transplant could give him a chance to be a normal kid, but Lucas' parents were unable to cover the costs associated with the transplant. They started a site to raise funds, yet their $50,000 donation goal seemed like a huge stretch — until a group of Internet strangers united to offer help.
Everything changed with a post on popular link-sharing website Reddit:
Hi Reddit, I'm Lucas! I'm 3 years old, have a 1 in 1 million disease, and need a bone marrow transplant!
Within 12 hours, the donation amounted to $44,405 — with $31,000 being attributed directly to Reddit users — and a new message was posted:
REDDIT. HOLY CRAP. YOU ARE CUT OFF. STOP. STOP NOW. WE HAVE ALL THAT WE NEED. I CANNOT THANK EACH OF YOU ENOUGH. BUT SERIOUSLY, STOP DONATING NOW.
The remaining necessary funds will be gathered during a silent auction/fundraiser in Jacksonville, Florida later in December. And out of sheer gratitude, Lucas' father will be getting a tattoo of the Reddit alien — the site's mascot.
It's worth noting that the sort of altruism presented after the Gonzalez family's call for help isn't uncommon among Reddit users. The site has hosted communities which dedicated themselves to shutting down auto-warranty robo callers, reuniting a mother and son who'd been apart 21 years, raising $500,000 for DonorsChoose.org, donating more than $185,000 to Direct Relief International for Haiti after an earthquake devastated the island in January 2010, preventing suicide, helping promote a large rally in Washington starring Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, and more.
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- Reddit-connected activist indicted in MIT theft
- Historical sci-fi movie began as Internet comment
- Reddit more about awesome, less about perverts
Want more tech news, silly puns, or amusing links? You'll get plenty of all three if you keep up with Rosa Golijan, the writer of this post, by following her on Twitter, subscribing to her Facebook posts, or circling her on Google+.
Leave a Comment:
Awesome.
Bravo, it's nice to see that there's more to internet forums than trolls.
I need to not read the good stories at work. They make me cry!
Wow, they truly saved his life. Kudos to all!
It's funny how Reddit is portrayed as loveable tricksters and 4chan is portrayed as godraping @!$%#s who seek only chaos, when they are both exactly the same.
Right. Point me towards the 4chan thread that saved a kids life today. Or any day. you're right, they're exactly the same. If you're looking for trolls, look in the mirror.
Saving a kid's life, toppling ponze schemes in priest robes(Scientology) defending wikileaks, Giving up to $100k to the last surviving soldier of WW1 for his 90 somethingth birthday, breaking a private, corporate used hacking firm in the USA, all of these are good things. Only one of these was done by reddit. The rest were 4chan. This is why reddit gets the spotlight, at least for now, because we have horrible memories when it comes to internet/social issues.
This is proof positive that communities can organize on the internet and affect positive changes to our world. I think News Organizations (like CNN, MSNBC and others) should take a hint and start encouraging people to affect their world in positive ways.
Other groups, such as the MPAA, RIAA and Fox News should take a hint and not try to restrict our digital liberties. If you put restrictions on the internet...you are likely to destroy any chance that communities on the internet could have a positive influence on our world.
Further, any president, congressperson, senator or other generic lawmaker that doesn't seem to understand these concepts should take a hike!
I wish this didn't sound like old hippie, but it would be nice if things like this were funded by government and the politicians had to make fund raisers for wars.
That'll do, pig. That'll do.
Seriously, that was darned nice of Reddit's users. Well done.
How about a society where no one has to "raise $50,000" so someone can have a life-saving, or any necessary, operation? Get the g0ddamn corporate profits out of health care.
Have an upvote.
I would upvote this if I could