Community Corner
Building the Largest So. Cal Fundraiser for Japan
Diamond Bar native Lady Noelle McDesmond uses her social networking skills to put together a huge fundraiser for the earthquake and flood victims. The benefit event will take place March 27 and hopes to raise over $250,000.
“The first tsunami wave looked like CGI, but then I realized… this is real,” Lady Noelle McDesmond said of her reaction as she watched the effects of the 9.0-magnitude earthquake that struck Japan on March 11.
Even as the events were still unfolding, McDesmond, 22 and a Diamond Bar native, knew she had to do something to help.
As social media editor at the Diamond Bar branch of the South Coast AQMD, McDesmond understood that turning to Twitter and Facebook would be the quickest way to spread her idea for a fundraiser.
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Within the first hour of the catastrophe, McDesmond had tweeted and created a Facebook group about her plan. The next morning, she awoke to find that her hours-old Facebook group had already amassed 179 members.
Since then, McDesmond and a core group of about 50 volunteers have managed to orchestrate what is currently the largest fundraiser in Southern California for relief aid to Japan.
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Despite taking just two weeks to organize, their lofty goal for OC 4 Japan is to raise $250,000.
McDesmond credits social media for a large portion of the success in marketing OC 4 Japan.
“I don’t know what people did before […] social media,” she said, explaining that her Twitter feed caught the attention of the OC Register. The OC Register’s coverage of OC 4 Japan in turn caught the eye of Fletcher-Jones Mercedes Benz, which subsequently became one of the event’s official sponsors.
In addition to utilizing social media, McDesmond also drew upon her previous fundraising experience. As a communications undergraduate at Cal State Fullerton, she and a couple friends assembled a fundraiser in response to the magnitude 7.0 earthquake that devastated Haiti last year.
The event raised $2,000 and took about four months to organize. McDesmond realized that this time around, it would be critical to act immediately for maximum impact, especially because “Japan is one of the developed nations, so, from a (public relations) perspective, I already knew that it was going to need all our help before the momentum ran out.”
Aside from having a stepbrother who was in Japan during the earthquake (he was uninjured), McDesmond has no direct ties to the country.
“I just wanted to bring the community together because they all wanted to help and just needed to be told what they needed to do," McDesmond said, "so (I thought that) I might as well do it.”
In the future, McDesmond hopes to continue using her social media and public relations skills to draw community awareness to important issues. On March 25, she will be launching her own web-based public relations firm, www.insPiRedbylady.com, which will specialize in community outreach for non-profit organizations.
OC 4 Japan takes place on March 27 from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. at 8Eighty8 Night Club in Newport Beach, with 100 percent of the proceeds going to the American Red Cross of Orange Count
OC 4 Japan is open to all ages and will feature a red carpet, celebrities, live entertainment, and more. For full details about tickets, volunteer opportunities, or how to contribute to OC 4 Japan, visit the website or email oc4japan@gmail.com.
