Twitter and Facebook:
Major players in Calgary efforts 
to raise money for Haiti earthquake relief

What: YYC4Haiti, a Calgary fundraiser for the Canadian Red Cross Haiti Relief
When: Thursday, January 28, 5:30 p.m.
Where: Flames Central
Who: YYC4Haiti, a team assembled via Twitter. Contact information below.

January 17, 2010

CALGARY—Three Calgary women have spearheaded a team to mobilize the city’s social-media and business communities to raise funds for the victims of the devastating earthquake in Haiti.

Camilla Di Giuseppe of CTV Calgary, Alex Ruiz of Calix Media and the Calgary Flames and former Calgary sports writer Angela MacIsaac have joined forces to lead a team organizing a fundraiser, YYC4Haiti, at Flames Central on Thursday, January 28, starting at 5:30 p.m.

The event will take place during the Calgary Flames-Phoenix Coyotes Pay Per View game. The Flames, along with the Calgary Stampeders, Calgary Roughnecks and Calgary Hitmen, have become major donors to the event, offering autographed jerseys, tickets and other items to a silent auction and door prizes.

“It is extremely difficult to watch the images and read the details that continue to emerge about the widespread devastation and suffering in Haiti,” said Di Giuseppe. “To put it simply, we want to help. The concept of YYC4Haiti took its first breath over the social-media platform Twitter, which is our primary tool in engaging and mobilizing the Calgary community.

“Now we are looking at the biggest charity ‘Tweetup’ Calgary has ever seen and we only have two weeks to do it!”

Followers of the #yyc hashtag, the search funnel for all things Calgary-related and named  for the city’s airport code, have not hesitated to get involved, many offering items for auction and door prizes or noting their intent to attend and donate to the cause.

“In just the span of one day on Twitter, we had Calgarians come forward to volunteer, to make donations and to say they’ll attend,” Ruiz said. “We’ve even had people from across Canada and the U.S., who have noticed the YYC4Haiti effort, offer to mail us donations for the silent auction!”

“YYC4Haiti is bringing everyone together. The tragic images and devastation in Haiti affect everyone, so we want to do everything possible to help. We know Calgary can come together and make a huge difference and we’re challenging the business community in our city to match the donations we raise.”

All proceeds for the event will be forwarded to the Canadian Red Cross, which is leading Canadian efforts to provide urgently needed support to survivors in Haiti and to address the longer-term needs of affected communities.

“Our hearts go out to those survivors in Haiti,” said MacIsaac. “It isn’t just about buildings and infrastructure. Lives and entire families have been destroyed. There is still a large number of Canadians missing as well and we can’t help but want to do all we can.”

For more information or to offer donations of cash or silent-auction and door-prize items, please contact:

Alex Ruiz: (403)519-4308; alex@calixmedia.com; Twitter: @alex_ruiz
Camilla Di Giuseppe: (403)589-8506; camilla.digiuseppe@ctv.ca; Twitter: @C_DIG
Angela MacIsaac: (403)466-3574;  angela.macisaac@gmail.com; Twitter: @that_angela