The San Francisco Bat Kid is a heart warming tale about a young boy named Miles, he is currently fighting leukemia. Miles has a strong interest, nah a passion for Batman, he adores the caped crusader.
It was his wish to be Batman, even for just a single day. This is where San Francisco Make a Wish stepped in, they had a plan to turn the Bay Area city into Gotham City for the day in order for Miles to serve and protect as Batkid, Batman’s partner.
On Friday, his dream came into fruition, San Francisco became Gotham and Miles became Batkid. His day of serving as the city’s protector led him to saving a women tied to the train tracks by the Riddler, stopping a bank robbery, rescued the Giants mascot from the clutches of the villainous Penguin and ended it all by being handed the keys to the city by the Mayor Ed Lee. All in all just another days work for Batkid.
Though there is much more to this great story, the planning, execution and promotion of the whole day was made possible due to social media.
First of all Make a Wish needed 10,000 volunteers to pull off this feat, so they took to their website and posted an RSVP to all Bay Area residents. Through Twitter and Facebook word spread, it was posted on Monday November 11th and by the Tuesday afternoon it had already reached its goal of 10,000. An interesting note to include is the reach of its message was not limited to the Bay Area, a couple from Ohio bought airline tickets to San Francisco the moment they read about this story in order to be a part of it. It is truly amazing that number of people who showed up did considering the short time frame they worked on. It is definitely an indication of just how strong social media is within our culture and the influence it has within our everyday lives. We have certainly have come a long way from the days of volunteers going door to door or on standing on street corners looking for volunteers.
Articles: http://mashable.com/2013/11/11/batkid-make-a-wish/