Full confession: Your blog author is one of the 13.5 million people in the U.S. who stuck with Lost through its series finale on Sunday. Since the topsy-turvy final episode, I have been going back and forth between “I spent six seasons on what?” and “I’m gonna really miss this.” I’ve digested all the reviews, been “that guy” who insists on talking about the show at work … yeah, I’m kind of a fan.
But I’ve got nothing on three guys from New York who sat down last week and watched all 120 episodes of Lost in a row – and raised money for important causes in the process.
LOST-A-THON, as the friends called their sit-down, lasted nearly 95 hours, starting just after midnight on Thursday and ending with the series finale late Sunday. It got the guys some publicity and a probable spot in Guinness World Records, but it also helped raise cash for three charities: The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, Doctors Without Borders, and The Nature Conservancy.
So far, LOST-A-THON has raised around $5,000 in total, including around $2,000 for TNC (the group that, many years ago, spawned Conservation International). Will that save the world? Of course not. Could charities use five grand, not to mention all the free recognition they’re getting? Absolutely. (If you’re so inclined, the fund-raising continues through the rest of this week.)
The lesson: If you’re willing to take action, you can make a difference – even by capitalizing on something as silly as your six-year obsession with a TV show that includes sentient black smoke, tropical polar bears, time travel, and weird Egyptian hieroglyphics on an island in the middle of the South Pacific.
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