A week ago, I asked a simple question.
Does Steemit have the power to end pain and suffering in the world?
Overwhelmingly, the answer was yes.
A woman I met through Steemit, , had been talking about how she had a broken crown on her tooth that caused her so much pain that she was only able to eat soft foods. The crown would cost $900 to get fixed, and she had only saved up $700 so far.
My instinctive response was a strong desire to change that situation, so I decided to see if Steemit would help achieve that goal by setting up a week-long fundraiser where I and other volunteers would post original content based around a crown theme in order to raise money and draw attention to a specific instance of suffering in the world that could be ended.
The Discord server this conversation began on was run by #teamgirlpowa, so the idea of empowerment was fresh in my mind when I began. Would we, as a group, be able to find a way to get that extra $200 to , and would Steemit be willing to help us do so?
Steemit, you absolutely were.
There is an entire list of people who I want to thank for the great success of this fundraiser, but I want to start with a special thank you to , the founder of the Minnow Support Project and a wonderful, inspiring human being. He let me promote the fundraiser during his Minnow Town Hall show, and shared some advice and personal support with me.
Beyond that, he pledged 25 STEEM to to match the donations of others, and his backing as a leader in the community really helped this to go the distance.
So how far did this go?
At the time of writing this, 210 STEEM and $70.50 worth of SBD were sent to as direct donations.
Thank you to all of our donors:
In addition to that, eight people aside from myself donated their time and effort to create original content to boost the visibility of the fundraiser, and pledged the SBD payout to .
Thank you to all of the creators who put their energy into this project:
As it says on the front page of Steemit, your voice is worth something. In this case, our voices were worth enough to inspire a chain of events that led to a positive outcome for a good person who was feeling very alone and powerless.
This is just one tiny seed of love and compassion that was planted on Steemit and grew to have a very real effect in the world. It's only a glimpse of the potential that Steemit has to offer as a social media platform that can connect people who are looking to share their interests and their desire to create, all backed by the value of a cryptocurrency.
The immutable nature of the blockchain means that everything you do here will become a permanent contribution to the history of humanity.