"When Julie Ferenzi of Plainfield read an online journal about a baby boy who was given six to eights weeks to live and needed a bone marrow donor, she went into action." Catherine Ann Velasco, The Herald News
Several weeks ago, you may remember a post by Julie Ferenzi entitled, This Has Nothing To Do With Real Estate But Everything To Do With Humanity. She wrote about a little boy named Trevor Kott who urgently needed a bone marrow transplant. She wrote from her heart. "I don't know why I feel it is my duty to help this family find this very special person who will save their little boy... but I do know one thing. Trevor hasn't given up and neither am I."
When Trevor passed away, Julie still didn't give up. She organized a bone marrow drive in Plainfield, Illinois and she talked about it, not just on ActiveRain, but on CafeMom and Mother's Fighting For Others and her own Living In Plainfield blog.
The result?
A successful bone marrow drive generates 30 new registered donors. Julie got 50. Her post, I Had An Amazing Mother's Day Weekend, is a post that will not fail to bring a smile to your face.
Blogging has allowed Julie to share her voice in ways she was unable to imagine before the Project Blogger competition began. She intuitively understands that the goal should be to connect with real people in a real way and on a personal level. You can't fake this stuff. You can't force it into being. And she doesn't. This is who she is and it comes through loud and clear.
The headline in The Herald News said it all for me, Plainfield Mom Sets Up Bone Marrow Drive. Julie is a Plainfield, Illinois Mom who takes action and gets the job done. If she's to be as successful in her real estate career as she was with this bone marrow drive, that simple fact will have to come through in everything she does and everything she writes. And it will.
She would have done the drive without blogging. Don't get me wrong here. But her writing and connecting is the reason why the photo in you see here is even possible. That's Julie and Tracy Herring, a friend she met through their writings online at CafeMom. Julie likes to call it MySpace for Moms. I prefer to call it ActiveRain for Moms. Either way, the point is the same. Whether you're blogging for business or blogging for personal reasons, what we're all looking for is a way to connect with real, live human beings. It's about You Engaging Others, YEO.
I was so happy for Julie this weekend. She was able to truly engage others in a way that made a difference. You can't ask for more than that.