Two college students were inspired to save lives – and they acted on that inspiration just by knocking on every single door of their campus and asking for quarters.
Jesse Richards and Mark Schussler are both juniors at Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa. Last month, the students made a bet based on a game – the loser of the bet would have to knock on all 700 campus dorm rooms and ask for one quarter from each student.
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The campaign started as a two-minute video to raise awareness for the famine that is currently damaging the country of Somalia. The initiative then snowballed into an international humanitarian effort that has since recruited an airline, dozens of celebrities, several nonprofits, and almost $3 million in crowdfunding.
Richards and Schussler wanted to contribute to the fund (instead of paying off some lousy traffic ticket), so they hit the campus streets. After spending hours pounding pavement and asking hundreds of students for their spare change, the juniors finally tallied up their donations to a surprising sum of $253.
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The students created a video of their exploits, highlighting how a community can help simply by coming together. When they published it on social media, they were delighted to see that Hollywood’s very own Ben Stiller had retweeted the video.
“It’s so cool that Ben Stiller actually watched our video,” says Richards.
It’s not hard to see why Stiller did indulge in the clip to begin with; the inspiring footage is a prime example of how everyone can make a change – even if it is just by giving quarters.
(WATCH the video below)
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