A couple of weeks ago, a full Marie Curie Cancer Care collection box was taken from The Village Café in Stanstead Abbotts High Street, leaving owner Jill Lovegrove distraught.
Thankfully these sort of events that erode your faith in humanity are not commonplace, despite what the media might tell you, and are simply a sad reminder that not everyone has a working moral compass.
This could well have been all that was ever heard about this particular incident, a few short paragraphs in a local newspaper. But one local resident decided that something needed to be done, and so began #stolencharitybox.
Steve Berry (@unloveablesteve) turned to the people that he knew just wouldn’t stand for this sort of thing and encouraged them to chuck in whatever they could afford to replace the £200 that had been stolen.
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/unloveablesteve/status/139299339393712129″]
Steve is one of the believers in social media and the almost unimaginable power it has to ‘do good’. Within only a few days Steve had reached his target, and is still continuing to raise money to help Marie Curie Cancer Care provide care to those with terminal cancer and other illnesses – at the time of posting, he was at £335.20.
[blackbirdpie url=”http://twitter.com/#!/mariecurieuk/status/140125217149296640″]
At a time when more and more ‘professional’ opinion is suggesting that social media is not the pot of gold it was thought to be, it is even more important that these small stories are heard. Each one by itself may not be worthy enough to grab the headlines of Mashable, but added together they are proof that social media is still the greatest thing that has happened to this world and that hope CAN be delivered in 140 characters.