[Noozhawk’s note: Twestival Local — Santa Barbara has set a $5,000 goal for its fundraising efforts on behalf of Direct Relief International. Organizers have not finalized a list of local celebrity Twitter users. An earlier version of this article was incorrect, and the story has been updated below.]
A unique form of fundraising will take place Sept. 11 as Twitter users and other community Web users gather offline to raise money for Santa Barbara-based Direct Relief International, a nonprofit humanitarian medical relief organization.
Twestival Local — Santa Barbara will be part of a worldwide Twitter festival of more than 200 cities hosting such events to raise money for a nonprofit organization Sept. 10-13, according to organizers.
The DRI event will be from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. on the rooftop patio of the Canary Hotel at Chapala and Carrillo streets. Activities will include live music, contests and prize giveaways, a short film screening about DRI, and a brief address by its directors and the lead sponsors of the event.
The local Twestival organizers who decided to support DRI have set a fundraising goal of $5,000 to support the organization’s work to provide community health centers and free clinics in the United States — including in Santa Babara — with sought-after free medicines and medical supplies for the clinics’ low-income and uninsured patients.
Click here for the Santa Barbara festival’s blog or click here for more information about the worldwide Twestival movement.
Founded in Santa Barbara in 1948, DRI is one of Santa Barbara’s oldest nonprofit organizations, as well as one of nation’s largest humanitarian medical aid groups. For every dollar in donations that DRI spends, it is able to provide more than $37 in donated medicines and medical supplies to local partners in 59 countries.
In the United States, DRI has provided more than $140 million (wholesale) worth of medicines and supplies for the poor and uninsured to more than 1,000 partner clinics and health center entities since 2004. That assistance includes more than 6 million needed prescriptions. Thanks to a generous bequest the organization received in 2007, all overhead costs (administration and fundraising) are paid for internally, enabling 100 percent of all donations to go toward programs.
A new Census report ranks Santa Barbara County as having California’s largest percentage of uninsured residents.
Invited to participate are members of the sizable local Twitter community (no formal metric exists, but definitely above 1,000 users), especially through power users with more than 300 followers, as well as local celebrities who Twitter. Twestival organizers hope those people promote the event and help secure attendees.
— Noozhawk staff writer Laurie Jervis can be reached at ljervis@noozhawk.com.