So, What’s Next?

Posted by Gabe on June 3, 2009 under Kids are Heroes | 5 Comments to Read

It’s been just over a year since MaryMargaret and I created the Kids Are Heroes web site.  Quite a bit has happened since then, especially in the last five months due to my Twitter involvement.  We have over 50 children that we recognize – they hail from as close as a few houses down our street to as far away as Texas, California and Alberta, Canada.  Every once in a while I will do a web search on “kidsareheroes.com” as I did this morning only to discover many more sites referencing us – some I knew about and others I did not.  I did find an independent review of us that was done without our knowledge and/or participation by Dana from Common Sense Media.  I think it accurately depicts us a a grass roots movement with a lot of potential once funded.

Speaking of which, this month is particularly exciting for us as our pitch is now airborne (all throughout the month of June) on all Virgin Atlantic flights thanks to Richard Branson (@richardbranson) and his Pitch TV concept.  We entered this contest in April and have the great fortune of winning and being featured first on the debut of his PitchTV show.  We can only dream of the possibilities that may unfold from this opportunity.

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Richard Branson’s Premiere PitchTV Show

That certainly doesn’t mean we can sit and wait by the phone.  That is not an activity that sits well with me, anyway.  Although the idea of the pitch is to connect with a person or group that has the ability to fund our idea so we can take it to a global level, there is no guarantee this will happen right away or even at all.  So for us it is business as usual.  We will continue to speak at events and schools when invited, try to uncover and recognize new heroes, help kids and parents get started and of course tweet about it on Twitter along the way.  We ask all of you to continue to spread the word about what we are doing and sooner or later this will become my life’s work as is my goal.

I really would like to thank the folks that have supported us up to this point.  There are so many of you who have been doing just that – if it weren’t for you we would never have had a chance at winning the PitchTV contest.  John Haydon (@johnhaydon) has been very generous as of late in creating innovative posts about our efforts.  I must acknowledge again the support from @SocialPMChick for writing a very nice post about us, as well as @LoobaLee for generating a contest around voting for us. @GinaRau has run several posts focusing on our heroes.  @Jyl_MomIF invited us to be guest tweeters for their GNO party which was a lot of fun.  @Tumblondad interviewed us for our first podcast a few months ago.   Then there is @MickeyGomez who reached out to me so that her volunteer organization can help us.  I certainly cannot forget about my very own sister and biggest fan Maureen (@moelib) who has been “too busy” for Twitter as of late but is always very supportive on her Facebook page.  There are so many more of you that are “religious retweeters” of our posts on Twitter (and Facebook) and I truly thank each and every one of you.  The word about Kids Are Heroes is indeed spreading at a very rapid rate I am confident that only more great things will result from it.