We’re back! And with great news: Nothing But Nets was featured on the front page of the New York Times today. Reporter Donald G. McNeil, Jr. explains how it’s becoming trendy and cool for today’s youth to donate $10 to send an insecticide treated bed net to a malaria prone region in Africa.
Unusual allies, like the Methodist and Lutheran Churches, the National Basketball Association and the United Nations Foundation, are stoking the passion for nets that prevent malaria. The annual “American Idol Gives Back” fund-raising television special has donated about $6 million a year for two years. The music channel VH1 made a fund-raising video featuring a pesky man in a mosquito suit.
It is an appeal that clearly resonates with young people.
Addressing a conference of 6,000 Methodist youths in North Carolina last year, Bishop Thomas Bickerton held up his own $10 and told the crowd: “This represents your lunch today at McDonald’s or your pizza tonight from Domino’s. Or you could save a human life.”
The lights were so bright that he could see only what was happening at his feet. “They just showered the stage with $10 bills,” Bishop Bickerton said. “In 30 seconds, we had $16,000. I’m just lucky they didn’t throw coins.”
You too can get in on the action. Click here to donate $10 for one bednet. As they say, “Send a Net, Save a Life.”