By Amy & Nancy Harrington, Pop Culture Passionistas
This week celebrities Tweeted to save lives, Superman stopped a foreclosure, and a TV funnyman battled a serious case. Here are this week’s most inspirational pop culture moments.
Stars Twitter to Save Animals’ Lives
Many celebrities are famously known for their love of animals–Mary Tyler Moore, Betty White, and Ellen DeGeneres to name a few. But they tend to get involved in old-school ways, like holding a fundraiser or a charity auction.
Well, there’s a new game in town for helping animals and it’s all about social networking. Adopt-a-Pet has developed a program called TwitterACritter and stars like Alyssa Milano, Kevin Nealon, Kristin Chenoweth, and David Cook are getting in on the animal act.
Adopt-a-Pet has an entire website dedicated to finding homes for needy animals. Click on one page and we dare you not to get a little bit choked up wondering how anyone could abandon these beautiful creatures.”
Adopt-a-Pet Executive Director and TwitterACritter creator, Abbie Moore, says, “Using the popularity and reach of Twitter, anyone can help a pet make their way out of the shelter and into a loving home, and they can do it from the comfort of their own chair, with just a few mouse clicks. And it’s fun!”
Visitors to the site can help these wanna-be pets even if they’re not in the position to adopt a dog or cat of their own. Simply select the location, breed, age, and/or size of a pet and the search engine will “fetch” matches. Each animal has its own “retweet” button. Just one click will spread the word to Twitter followers that this loving animal needs a home.
So imagine the boost the program gets when a celebrity with a large number of followers tweets an animal. Moore explained, “The celebrity support for TwitterACritter has been amazing! Often celebrities have tens or hundreds of thousands of followers, and when they Twitter a critter, they encourage their supporters to do it, too. As soon as Alyssa Milano tweeted a critter, for example, literally thousands of her followers re-tweeted her message or tweeted a critter of their own. One tweet from a celebrity creates an avalanche of compassion.”
Join celebrities like Ice T and Mario Lopez who are clicking to save the lives of these shelter animals.
Superman Saves a Family from Foreclosure
It’s a bird, it’s a plane… no it’s just an old comic book. Okay, not any old comic book. The Man of Steel saved the day yet again recently when a family, who was losing their house to foreclosure, stumbled up on the Action Comics #1 mag when packing up their belongings.
This very special edition, marked the introduction of Superman, and similar copies have sold for over $1 million each. The funny book was due to be appraised at Comic-Con last month. And while it’s not expected to fetch as high a price, the good news is it will definitely bring in enough cash for the anonymous family to keep their home. So it looks like they won’t have to pack up, up, and away any time soon.
Grizz from “30 Rock” Takes on a Not So Funny Cause
Actor Grizz Chapman plays a character of the same name on the ABC comedy “30 Rock.” His character is truly funny, but what Chapman has been going through in recent months is no laughing matter.
The 36-year-old former boxer turned member of Tracy Morgan’s on-screen posse, has undergone a kidney transplant. After suffering from hypertension and undergoing dialysis three times a week for years, Grizz finally lost the necessary weight and a donor was found.
And, as is often the case, he’s turned his personally painful experience into a positive opportunity to pay it forward. Now Chapman is speaking out on behalf of other donors, asking for support (and donations) for the National Kidney Foundation’s Kidney Walk.
So far Team Grizz has earned just 5% of their $5,000 goal. But there’s still time to donate and the opportunity to score a Team Grizz t-shirt for $150 donation. And, the person who raises the most money, will get a “30 Rock” poster signed by the cast.