Philanthropy oozes out at Twitter

I am forgoing my usual box office blog this week to talk about something a little cooler and a little more important.  Ashton Kutcher and CNN's high profile battle to a million followers on micro-blogging site, Twitter seems to have helped launch the philanthropic spirit all around.  Kutcher vowed to donate 10,000 mosquito nets to third world countries if he won and, in a tight race, he pulled it out.

A few days ago, a good friend of mine, Scott Neumyer, decided that he was looking to trim down his DVD collection by 100 titles.  Instead of selling them on eBay for a quick couple hundred bucks, Scott tweeted asking his followers for any ideas of where to donate them.  Thanks to the recommendations by a few faithfuls, he decided to send them all off to the hard working and homesick troops serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere else.  So was born the #TroopFlix initiative.

Scott decided that, if he hit 2,000 followers by a certain time, he would throw in another 100, totaling 200.  Then other started pouring in, @funimation donated 200, @miramaxfilms,@rottentomatoes, @yahoomovies, a bunch of followers and, yes, @shakefire threw 200 into the mix as well, bringing the total to nearly 1,000 DVDs, giving the troops a little taste of home that they may have been missing.

So, we know troops like to watch movies, but we have to assume that they like music as well right?  I'm sure a little U2, Carrie Underwood, Metallica, Linkin Park, Eminem or Kanye West on their iPods would help make things a little easier. So, we are going to birth the #TroopKix initiative, in an effort to wrangle up as many CDs as we can for the troops.  We will be starting a collection for CDs for the troops sometime next week.  Head over to @shakefire and follow us to get notification of when we begin.  Also, while you are at it, follow Shakefire writers @SFPandora and, myself, @peteroberth just for good measure.

Also, if you are still looking to donate some DVDs for the cause, head over to @scottneumyer and I'm sure he will be nice enough to let you know how to do it.

As of the deadline, here are a list of the people who donated DVDs in case you want to follow some really good people:
@jpgardner
@macslost
@FrewAtHitFix
@TeeVeeGal
@scottEweinberg
@dividepictures
@angelaandconnor
@Jenn_Brown
@channing_h
@themarina
@ldmullen
@devincf
@FyodorFish
@JoseMarzan