twestival local - Tweet.Meet.Give. - March 24, 2011

When the board of Social Media Club Mid-Mo began planning for the 2011 CoMo Twestival, we decided we wanted to make a big statement.

Jen Reeves, a member of the board and the tweep who brought Twestival to CoMo in 2009, had done a wonderful job of raising awareness about the event, which in its first two years raised money for international causes. 

But this year we decided to make it local, and we settled on Boone County Family Resources, a group that positively affects many local families, including Jen's.

We expected the local focus would attract more sponsors, donors and excitement, and we set a fundraising goal of $2,000.

We were not disappointed. In fact, the response was phenomenal. Last night, CoMo Twestival raised $2,896 for Boone County Family Resources. 

So, give yourself a hand if you sponsored, volunteered, attended, tweeted, Facebooked, emailed or otherwise cheered on the cause. 

Of course, none of this would have been possible without out sponsors, so we'd appreciate if you'd recognize them.

True Media

Shakespeare's Pizza

Les Bourgeois Vineyards

Missouri Wines

Golden Barrel

Schlafly Beer

Orr Street Studios

Kaldi's Coffee

Redlight Photobooth

Isle of Capri Boonville

Columbia Daily Tribune

102.3 BXR

The Rocket Group

Bangkok Gardens

Main Squeeze

Kampai Sushi

Massage Envy

The League of Innovators

Lizzi & Rocco's Natural Pet Market

Mo.com

C. Jane Create

Lollipop Photography

And last but certainly not least, we need to thank the former Mizzou football stars who helped raise a good chunk of money by auctioning off retweets. 

Thanks Chase Daniel, Martin Rucker, Kevin Rutland and Sean Weatherspoon. 

Former MU players now playing in the NFL have offered to auction off 3 retweets each. @ChaseDaniel, @Ruckersouthside, and @k_rutland have all volunteered to retweet the winning bidder of their auction 3 times. That's almost 100,000 impressions total!

Here's Chase Daniel telling you himself:

Join us at Orr Street Studios on Thursday, March 24 to raise money for a good cause and visit with local tweeps.

For 2011, #CoMo Twestival is raising money for Boone County Family Resources, an organization that purchases and provides services for Boone County residents with developmental disabilities.

The suggested donation is $10 at the door and includes drinks, pizza from Shakespeare's, and some awesome silent auction and raffle items. Have your photo taken by Redlight Photobooth as you mix and mingle with your favorite local tweeps.

Click here to donate to Boone County Family Services... or click that green "DONATE" button up near the top right corner of this site!

I love social media. I also happen to be an early adopter. So I jumped into Twitter early and started having conversations with all kinds of interesting people. Often we would talk about things that interest me the most like journalism (which is my job) and being a mom (which is my other job). I had conversations that spanned across the country and around the world as more and more people started to join. I was one of the first Twitter users in Columbia and I guess that's why I just naturally became one of the town's local community organizers when it comes to social media.

Fast forward to early 2009 and I had a lot of people I knew from Columbia and mid-Missouri asking me when I would set up a "tweetup" for local Twitter users. I guess it just seemed natural that the "loudest" tweeter would make something happen in real life.

So when I stumbled into the idea of Twestival in 2009, it seemed like the perfect reason to bring everyone together. I learned about the event two weeks before Twestival parties around the world pitched in to help Charity:Water - an organization that builds drinking wells in third-world countries. I decided to coordinate the entire event via Twitter. And in two weeks, we had it all. We had the location (which was in the Faye Street Lofts), food, drink, auction items, a Wii to play with and even a locally-made Twitter feed that we could broadcast onto the wall to keep up with what we were all saying! The event was small, fun and we made a little difference for the charity. Vox Magazine wrote a little article about it (and my son got his picture in print, which he thought was cool.)

Fast forward to 2010. It made sense to do it again... This time with more people behind me and even more donations and fun as we raised money for the international organization, Concern Worldwide. We held it at Shakespeares Pizza where they kindly donated the back meeting room for the party. We had a bigger crowd, raised more money. We even raffled away a Nexus One!

And now we have this year's event. It's a bit different than ever before. This year it's a Twestival Local - that means we're helping raise money for a local organization. So this year, we're pitching in to help Boone County Family Resources. It is a local group that helps developmentally and physically disabled people of all ages get services, support and equipment to live happy lives. You have a chance to donate, share, tweet, have fun and join up with the social media community and help make a difference for a local organization.

Let me tell you why I think it's a big deal. BCFR helps so many people with all kinds of differences get more out of life. It has helped my five-year-old daughter, Jordan, attend Camp No Limits since she was three. The summer family camp is a place where kids with limb differences can play and learn about core strength so they can prevent long-term strain on their bodies. Her brother gets a chance to hang out with other siblings who know what it's like to have a brother or sister with a limb differences. I get to meet with other parents and get to know more families in our world. Here's one of my favorite pictures from our first year of camp:

You can see her wearing one of her helper arms. BCFR gives me a chance to apply for grant money that helps me pay for our insurance company's out-of-network expenses. We work with a prosthetist in Chicago who is a wonderful person. Thanks to her prosthetics, Jordan gets to do things she would never normally get to do, like hang on the monkey bars:

BCFR also give us a chance to take part in the Cedar Creek Therapeutic Riding Center. Jordan even learned how to hold the reigns with her newest helper arm. (It's the first one she's ever had with a movable elbow. It also has princess pictures on it and that makes it even cooler.)

 

I would love to see even more people join in for Twestival 2011. This year the new Social Media Club Mid-MO is pitching in to make this happen. We have FABULOUS sponsors. We have awesome donations including yummy food and drink. It's going to be a lot of fun and I'm honored to have a chance to give back to a local organization that does so much. Thanks to Boone County Family Resources and thanks to you for helping make a difference in our community!

-Jen Lee Reeves

Jenny Wade and her husband, parents of a six-year-old boy with disabilities, met with the Twestival Team of KOMU-TV and expressed their gratitude to Boone County Family Resources. They hope the upcoming Twestival fundraiser will be a good chance to help people in need and raise the public's awareness of the care essential for the people with disabilities.

Jeff Johnson is the Vice President of Boone County People-First. He realized his dream to present to students of Missouri School of Journalism and discuss with them how to help people with disabilities in a meaningful way. He proposed that the good way to help the people in need is to understand their thinking, interest and potential challenges while allow them to have different opinions from us.

Johnson has a passion for his work and deep love to the people in need of help due to their disabilities. He suggests that disabilities are nothing to be shamed of. People never know what will happen to them during lifetime. People with disabilities deserve care and respect and should be treated fairly.