My Celebrity Wake Up Text (Sorta)

Alright, so my title might be a bit misleading, but it’s more or less true! Honestly, I did get a text from a celebrity. Kinda. Trust me…

So I have my Twitter account set up so that if somebody sends me a direct message, it gets forwarded to my cell phone as a text message. Tuesday night I decided to visit Mick Foley’s blog, and read a straightforward and passionate post requesting a donation of $10 or more for RAINN, a charitable organization he works with that assists victims of sexual violence. I was touched enough by the plea that I decided to provide a link on my Twitter account.

Later that night, I’m awakened by my cell phone’s text message indicator. I check my phone to see a direct message I received from Mick Foley himself, thanking me (by name) for my comment. What an unexpected but incredibly thoughtful gesture. It sounds insignificant, but my Twitter name (@acaseofthetwit) doesn’t even include my name – he went to the trouble to check my page to find out my name.

Anyway, I thought it was a really cool gesture, so in return I thought I’d do my small part in assisting Mick’s campaign. RAINN stands for Rape Abuse & Incest National Network, and as Mick explains in his blog post, an amount as little as $10 can provide somebody with live, one-on-one support. Rape and incest are absolutely dreadful acts of abuse and violence, yet it falls into this strange “niche” where your average person has trouble relating to it. I know I do, as thankfully (to my knowledge), nobody I know has been a victim of sexual abuse, and hopefully the same applies to you. But that doesn’t mean we can’t understand the importance of what $10 can do.

While I can’t personally relate to the specific issues that RAINN tackles, I think we can all understand depression in general. Perhaps you or somebody you know suffers from depression. It doesn’t even have to be full-blown, I-need-a-therapist depression. Maybe you’re just having a particularly bad day and you need somebody to talk to. In most cases, you probably have a friend or family member. But imagine you didn’t have somebody to turn to? And imagine you weren’t just having a bad day – instead, you were on the edge and you didn’t know what you were going to do? It is instances such as these that live, one-on-one support is absolutely crucial. It honestly can be life or death. And in sensitive situations like sexual abuse, where the victim feels embarrassed or even shameful, a hotline could be the only option. Your $10 can truly save a life.

Admittedly, I’m not quite as eloquent as Mick Foley and I’m definitely far more long winded, but I do hope that this post got through to somebody. So, readers, I now have a challenge for you. If I donate $100, who is willing to match my contribution? If it makes any difference, according to Foley’s incentives, that sort of donation earns you a sweet autographed photo!