Austin-based nonprofit Mobile Loves & Fishes wanted to raise a more visceral type of awareness about homelessness, and teamed up with marketing agency T3 for a two-day stunt in which an actual homeless man, Danny, slept on a 50-foot billboard where passers-by could text donations to raise money to find a new home for him and his wife. Two days, 252,000 people on Twitter and $12,000 later, Danny was able to find shelter.
More than 3.5 million people in America are homeless, yet too often, they go unseen. Austin-based homeless mission Mobile Loaves and Fishes wanted to change that, to give homeless people a voice with which to say “I am here” and empower others to help.
That’s why, April 27-28, 2010, MLF founder Alan Graham, along with Danny Silver, a then-homeless man, went up on a billboard on I-35. The goal was inspire people to text enough $10 donations to get Danny and his wheelchair-bound wife Maggie off the streets and into a gently used RV (just $12,000).
Not only did we raise enough money to get Danny and Maggie a home, we raised awareness of homelessness to a dramatic new height.
During the time Danny and Alan were on the billboard people, tuned in around the country, with news coverage in 30 markets nationwide. One of those people tuning in was Danny’s daughter, whom he hadn’t seen in ten years. She contacted Alan, and they were reunited the same day Danny and Maggie moved into their home.
COMMENTARY: Thanks to the "I Am Here" outdoor campaign by MLFNow (Mobile Loaves and Fishes) Danny Silver was re-united with his daughter and found a home. What a great ending. Thanks MLFNow.org.
Courtesy of an article dated December 13, 2010 appearing in Advertising Age
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