Posted on 06/27/2008 11:42:29 AM PDT by Syncro
| Telethon Breaks Records, Troops to Receive Largest Care Package Delivery in History |
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| Written by Melanie Morgan | |
| Friday, 27 June 2008 | |
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The telethon exceeded my wildest expectations. I thought that if we were really lucky, really good, caught some major breaks -we might raise $400,000- tops. Instead, the final tally on the electronic tote board was $1,055,719.
   In reality, the total far exceeds the final number. The response was so overwhelming that our website could not keep up with the orders. When all is said and done, I am guessing that Move America Forward will have collected about 1.2 million. People are still donating because UStream.tv re-broadcast the stream, and radio stations across the country were broadcasting or re-broadcasting in various markets. Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham personally donated $15,000 each, and Rush Limbaugh pledged a personal check, Mark Levin donated, Michelle Malkin and Coulter cash flowed into our account. Mark Williams from WROR in Albany, New York flew into California to be our ‘relief pitcher’ and his wife Holly ran the sound board and produced while we were on-the-air. John Ondrasik from Five For Fighting was an articulate and passionate guest who was truly inspirational, as well as Jackie Mason. We did experience a few technical difficulties that prevented several guests from joining us, which was disappointing but not unexpected. Some of the best highlights came from Hughes Sullivan, a Salem talk show host in Detroit, Michegan (whom frankly I had never heard of before) live from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas with senior military officials from the war college whose plain-spoken words about the troops, care packages, family struggles, and their mission grabbed eyeballs and heartstrings. All of our guests were truly amazing, but Michelle Malkin was the break-out star of the telethon, alongwith Debbie Lee, a Gold Star mother whose son Marc Alan Lee was the first Navy Seal killed in the fighting in Iraq. Debbie ran our tote board. Michelle is so poised, professional and truly engaged in troop support, with the technical vision to make this happen. UStream.tv co-founders Brad Hunstable and John Hamm never left the broadcast from the moment it began, babysitting us all the way through. Of course, the real story is that hundreds of thousands of generous Americans participated in a New Media venture that has never before been done. They did it for one reason: love and support for the United States military, our troops and our heroes. Over 5 million emails went out in advance of the telethon, and the chatrooms were filled with people conversing with each other and us. I am totally blown away. I could not be personally more thrilled with Wednesday’s experience from the Silicon Valley. Again, my thanks and heartfelt good wishes to everyone who contributed, chatted, donated, and supported our care package efforts for the troops! From Michelle Malkin's email today: Ms. Malkin, As an active duty Navy Master Chief with 27 years so far in the service, I would like to extend my sincere thanks to you and the entire staff of moveamericaforward for the event you held last night. It was truly inspirational to me. The political climate in our country the past few years, and the media's criminal bias had me convinced that I had certainly wasted my adult life hoping the country would get it. I have renewed hope that perhaps we will get it before our country is destroyed from within. Very well done. I know how it feels as a life long submariner what it's like to be separated from all contact with family and friends and know our troops will be overwhelmed by the generosity and gratitude you all have spurned. With moveon spending half a million to trash our military on TV ads, who really supports the troops. Very Respectfully, |
"All of our guests were truly amazing, but Michelle Malkin was the break-out star of the telethon, alongwith Debbie Lee, a Gold Star mother whose son Marc Alan Lee was the first Navy Seal killed in the fighting in Iraq. Debbie ran our tote board. MIchelle is so poised, professional and truly engaged in troop support, with the technical vision to make this happen.Kudos to Brad and John for creating this great medium and going all out to help make this a sucess."UStream.tv co-founders Brad Hunstable and John Hamm never left the broadcast from the moment it began, babysitting us all the way through."
What a great job by MM and MM and MW too.. They Got It Done!!!
Kudos to UStream and Thanks to All the remote guests and service family members that helped make it such a HUGH success!!!
Congratulations to Melanie Morgan and all who made this possible! Great job!!
God bless our troops!!
Outstanding News!!!
It was so wonderful to take such a part in history! I hope to God the troops DO get the message that we are here for them, that we love them and are doing all we can on the homefront to battle these liberal traitors.
Calling to donate meant a long stay on hold, but it was well worth it.
We can never change what was done to us when we came home from Viet Nam, but seeing events as this and the mass support tells me that our motto, NEVER AGAIN, will be proven true.
Thank you, America.
When we went across country last November to collect cards to send to the troops at Christmas time (over 250,000) we sent some of them from fly-over country and immediately Debbie Lee started getting emails from Iraq from troops expressing their gratitude.
Waiting on Oberlame to have a telethon for the troops.
Or ANY dimlib!
Bet he couldn’t come close to matching this one.
Excellent!
AWESOME!!!! BTTT!!!!
Good job by the patriot chicks.
From a Move America Forward email Wednesday.Talk about an odd coalition - but we'll take it!
Yesterday conservative talk radio giant, Rush Limbaugh, and the often liberal San Francisco Chronicle both promoted our effort to send the largest care packages to U.S. troops in history. (Check out some of those comments from liberal readers of the Chronicle - they're very angry that we are supporting the troops!).
So now here we are - 24 hours away from the start of the From the Front Lines telethon. I am leaving it in your hands, the people of this nation, to do what you can to help us reach our goal and send in excess of $500,000 in care packages to U.S. troops.
An interesting quote from the Chronicle article:
Conservatives and new media? Hmmm. Those two haven't exactly danced a lot together. Who -- and what -- could bring this crew together?Funny how out of touch liberals are.
After all their moaning and groaning about how conservatives control the media and the Internet, now the truth comes out. Finally the Conservative message is cracking the glass ceiling of the Liberal Media spin.
Don't tell them we been dancing together for a long long time... :>)
Fantastic!! God bless our troops!!
Early on as I watched the feed and saw the totals coming in I said to my self, “self, they’re gonna surpass their goal - you just watch and see.”
Congratulations and grateful thanks to all involved - hosts, guests and contributors.
And thanks to you, Syncro, for this presentation.
Damn, I’m proud to be a Troop Supporting American and proud of all my like-minded individuals.
Cross link to Catherine Moy's Article at Move America Forward
Big salute to all concerned with yesterday’s telethon. Fantastic results! The fastest eight hours ever!!!
Oops, Dude...
Let’s give credit where credit is due: thanks to the SF Chronicle.
But the truth of the matter is this effort was really the work of hard core conservatives.
I was watching when they gave a shout out to us FREEPers!!
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