Forward Podcast 38 is an inspirational story of connection as Paull Young takes a look at the Frozen Peas Community that has risen up in support of Susan Reynolds.

Susan blogs at Case Notes from the Artsy Asylum and is recognized as one of the ‘most loved’ members of the Twitter Community. In December Susan was diagnosed with breast cancer - a journey she has been tracking at a new blog, Boobs on Ice and via her extensive Twitter network. As Susan began her personal battle, a remarkable story of connection and community sprung up as her online friends activated a support network through Twitter and other blogs in solidarity with Susan.
This resulted in the Frozen Pea Fund, a fundraising effort to support breast cancer research. If you’re new to this story, it has already been told better than I am able in the Washington Post. The author of that Washington Post piece, Craig Colgan (who also blogs at The Municipalist), joins us for this podcast as he discusses how he found this story through social media, took it through the editorial process and then joined the Twitter community (as @ccwriter) to follow the story even further.

It’s an inspirational story of the power of connection, caring and community. The story still continues and you can be a part of it by supporting the Frozen Pea Fund in any way you are able.

Show Notes

00:15: Paull introduces the podcast.

01:30: The interview begins as Susan Reynolds and Craig Colgan introduce themselves and share where they can be found on the web.

05:10: Susan, Paull and Craig explain what Twitter is (and Paull points to our earlier podcast on Twitter with Doug Haslem.)

06:30: Susan tells the story about the growth of her online community through Twitter and other social media venues.

10:30: Susan shares the back story that leads to her diagnosis with breast cancer and the story of the day she was diagnosed.

14:30: Susan continues to tell the story of the day she was diagnosed, including how she was Tweeting from her phone at the Dr’s surgery, without being able to see her friends response.

17:40: Susan tells the beginning of the PEAS as an emblem for her fight and her community.

20:30: Susan and Paull chat about the rise of the PEAvatars as the Twitter community showed their support for Susan by changing their avatars to feature peas as a symbol of support.

23:00: Paull asks Susan about how the rise of the Frozen Pea Fund came about through the work of Connie Reece, Cathleen Rittereiser and others.

25:45: Paull asks Craig how he first came across Susan’s story and how the story developed into his Washington Post piece.

29:30: Craig and Paull discuss the fluid relationship between traditional and social media that occurred around Craig’s WaPo story and Craig explains how the story grew extra legs through the support of the online community.
33:40: Craig shares his thoughts on the power of connection that are highlighted by Susan’s story.

35:50: Susan shares some of the things she has learned, along with some touching examples, from her journey with the PEAS so far.

40:30: Susan provides a call to action, highlighting some of the important ways she sees that people can help.

42:30: Craig points to the lesson he has taken from Susan’s story: “People are looking for reasons to connect, to help each other. People enjoy it, they love it. We forget this… but this shows us that people want to participate and do good”

Listen Now:

 Forward Podcast 38 - Susan Reynold's and the Frozen PEAS Community [48:16m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (3458)

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View video below. (I can’t get the embedded video to work right, so you’ll just have to watch it here.)

I swear I’m not on a feminist kick, I’ve just been meaning to write about this for a while. I originally saw it at Toby Bloomberg’s blog, and then I caught the PSA on TV the other night, which reminded me and ultimately prompted this post.

First of all, I’m highly impressed by this witty campaign. Put on by Women’s Voices. Women’s Votes., it’s a great case study of a very integrated and innovative effort — complete with YouTube videos, TV commercials, viral buttons, and apparently, blogger relations — designed to motivate young women to vote.

Secondly, I do encourage you to vote. In a conversation with Paull Young recently, he informed me that Australians can be fined for not voting — which is unfortunate in situations when none of the candidates are worthy of support. Granted, Americans aren’t forced to vote with threat of monetary consequences, but we still have the right – why not take advantage of that?!

Nov. 7 — Election Day.

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So after four years of wondering what I am going to do with the rest of my life, I have finally graduated and started working for a company in North Carolina called Three Springs. As most of you are probably not familiar with this, I’ll explain a little more about the company. I work as a counselor to troubled teens who are placed there for a year or longer (or shorter) depending on the situation. I’ll be doing many activities and events with them. So far, I have only worked one week and I absolutely love the job. It is a residential facitlity, so when I’m working I stay on shift. (I usually work four days on and three days off.)

Now you are probably wondering why I’m doing this if I graduated with a degree in public relations from a major university. Well, here is my answer: I am looking long term. It has always been a dream of mine to one day open my own residential camp for kids. I believe in order to succeed at this, I had to obtain some sort or public relations/marketing degree to get the background I would need later down the road. Also, I’m working with Three Springs now because I want to explore my options and this is something I have always felt comfortable doing as my Forward bio shows.

My advice is this for upcoming graduates and those that have just graduated: do something that challenges you and set your goals high. I am happy right now, and hopefully everyone else is, too.

Have a great day. Sorry it has been long since my last post. Oh yea, Happy Birthday Erin.

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We’ve all seen the pictures of missing children on the back of milk cartons, or on flyers in the mail. If you watched MTV in the early 90’s you may remember a song by Soul Asylum called Runaway Train that featured the pictures of about 40 missing kids throughout the video.

Well now Flickr is being utilized as a means for the pictures of missing children to be shown. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has begun posting its pics of missing children to a Flickr group. How cool is that! This is such an important cause. And it’s great to see that a new social media tool is the vehicle being used for it. (Tip of the cap to Kevin Dugan for that.)

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Since my focus is on non-profit organizations, I thought I would talk about the organization I am currently working for in a class project called the Greater Peace Community Development Corporation (GPCDC). The GPCDC began as a vision of the Rev. Clifford E. Jones, senior pastor of the Greater Peace Missionary Baptist Church in Opelika. The church was established in 1917, and was located at the corner of Dover Street and Jeter Avenue, Opelika, Ala. In 1996, three years after Jones became pastor of Greater Peace, a new building was erected at 650 Jeter Ave. The church is currently approaching 900 members. Jones dreamed of an organization extending the church’s programs to benefit the community. The CDC was established May 16, 2000, as a public non-profit organization under Section 501c(3) of the Internal Revenue Service. It is located next to the church and primarily focuses on addressing the needs of individuals from the Auburn, Opelika and Lee County areas.

The CDC consists of three major programs: the Youth Leadership Academy, the Child Development Center and an affordable housing project. Since beginning in 2000, these programs have had consistent success. The Youth Leadership Academy has had 100 graduates to date, there are 74 children out of a possible 89 student capacity at the Child Development Center, and there are six families participating in the affordable housing program.

A board composed of 17 community and business leaders from the Auburn-Opelika area governs the CDC. The board meets six times a year with special meetings called on a per-need basis. Officers of the board include a chairperson, vice-chairperson, treasurer and secretary.

The interesting thing about this company is that it all this time, it has only used one form of public relations, and that is through word-of-mouth by Jones. He has gone to other local churches and various community events to spread the good word of his organization. I am currently working with a group to prepare a public relations plan for them. Any ideas would be great! To date, the corporation as a whole is effective, but there is no evidence that it is due to public relations efforts, particularly through the word-of-mouth campaign and church visits. The corporation needs to have many more public relations efforts to help raise awareness and create an image with the target publics. Since the CDC is still fairly young, word-of mouth has been all they needed to get the message out to the public, mainly the Greater Peace Missionary Baptist Church. They are looking to get more people involved with these programs that they have to offer. So I am currently working for two non-profits and have my head full of ideas. This looks to be a fun and exciting end to a great semester at Auburn.

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