Pimp this bum

So I was visiting the cnn website today, and came across an article about a website called pimpthisbum.com. Initially I was like "what is this? Is someone doing something really shady to homeless people?" but I quickly found that couldn't be further from the truth.

These two guys in Houston, Texas, Kevin and Sean Dolan (a father and son) started an online marketing business. In order to create a model to use as proof that their strategies could work, they decided to try and help someone out. So they came up with the site "Pimp this bum," and set out to find a homeless man, which they quickly did - a guy named Tim Edwards, an alcoholic living beneath an underpass in Houston. They gave him a sign to hold with the site address on it, and $100 a day to hold it. According to his testimony, he was pretty stoked about the $100, but it turned out to mean so much more for him.

On the site, people could donate anything to help Tim out - a cup of coffee, a sandwich, crossword puzzle books, or $20. So many people were surprised by his sign, visited the site, and wanted to help that the site ended up raising $50,000 for Tim. An alcohol rehab facility in Seattle donated a five-week program to him, and Southwest airlines gave Tim and Sean Dolan tickets to fly there. Now, thanks to all the donations, Tim is really getting his life together, and has a brand new start that he calls simply "a blessing." The site follows his story, and is now also helping some of his friends.

In these days of constant bad news, it's pretty nice to read a story about people coming together to support a stranger who's had a rough go of it. Thanks for some good news, cnn! (I assume Ali of course had something to do with this excellent decision making.)