Helping Haiti

By KATIER REITVELD

Staff Writer

One thing the Second Life residents seem to excel at is fund raising. Over the years, residents have raised huge quantities of real life cash for all sorts of charitable reasons.

Some of these are regular events, such as the hugely successful Relay for Life, while others are one off events done in response to a crisis somewhere around the globe. Perhaps the most successful of these was the response to Hurricane Katrina, which resulted in the creation of the Biloxi and Big Easy sims.

The latest such crisis, is a comparative stones throw, from the city decimated by Katrina as residents around the grid are now putting together events and fund-raisers to help the suffering people in the country of Haiti.

Struck recently by a devastating magnitude-7.0 earthquake, it is estimated 200,000 people may have died in this struggling country with perhaps as many as 1 million people now homeless.

Unlike Katrina, fund-raising efforts so far don't seem to be as centralised, with residents around the grid organising events to raise funds for the disaster appeals that have sprung up in the aftermath.

Just putting "Haiti" into a recent events' search brought up nine events all claiming to raise funds for Haiti.

As is to be expected, the size of events varies a lot. Some are small club events, while others are more substantial with live musicians participating in multi hour extravaganzas.

According to the Second Life official Blog, Katydid Something is one person working with live musicians on a major fund raising event.

Something started the project after speaking to Rhiannon Chatnoir. Something said, "It started with me pinging my friend Rhiannon Chatnoir, and we all talked to other people and decided with the response to gather peeps together and see what we could do. We had about 35-40 people at the first meeting."

They then ran a poll trying to decide on the best way of supporting those in need. They decided to support the Hope for Haiti due to them funnelling the donations on to the charity needing it most to help the suffering.

They are now planning the events for what will be a long term project. They have been helped by the Relay for Life team, who have provided customised versions of the RFL kiosks as well as advice.

Something said, "We also met on Friday with Non-profit Commons who is helping us with the whole campaign. We have two [events] planned now; The first being a soft kick-off on Sat the 30th and the major being a 2-day Music and Art Festival the last weekend in Feb."

Other events, and organisations, around the grid have apparently raised thousands of USD.

Some of these organisers have, apparently, been 'shooting above their weight' with one 4K plot of land, known as 'potpourri'  believed to have raised over 5000USD for the American Red Cross and their Haiti work.

Kali Idziak is planning on supporting the Haitian Sustainable Development Foundation with an event.

Perhaps the most direct support, known to have been given, is by long time resident and pilot Ham Rambler. He has been in Haiti since not long after the disaster assisting with relief efforts by providing air transportation.

Overall, it's clear that residents throughout the grid are dedicating hours of their time to support a whole country in desperate need of help.