Kevin Adler wanted to honor his schizophrenic uncle Mark, who lived on-and-off the streets for 30 years. Ten years after Mark had died, Adler visited his gravesite in Santa Cruz, CA. for the first time, and had a realization: he had to do something for “the people still living on the streets, whose lives we forget or ignore each day”. There it was: the germ of his tribute to his uncle that became a startup he founded, miraclemessages.org.
A report from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development estimates there were more than 500.000 homeless in the United States at the end of 2015, according to Reuters.”Like Mark, there are many people on the streets who suffer from mental illness, or drug addictions, or severe disabilities. Many people who have problems, just like the rest of us. Some are mental illnesses; some are down on their luck, just divorced, missed payment, bad accident, mounting health care costs, debts, mistakes, chances that just didn’t work out. Many people who have families and people who miss them and love them, just like the rest of us”, states the presentation of this project.
It all materialized in 2014.
This is how it goes: Kevin Adler and a team of volunteers go for “homeless hunting” on the streets or at local shelters or meal services and tell them what they intend to do. They ask them if they want to reconnect with their families. Then they record a video message with their smart phones, after the person has authorized it through an intake form. Another team of volunteer detectives track their relatives and friends online and share the video in “strategic social media”, as they explain on the website. If the loved ones are reached, volunteers ask them to record a message back for the homeless person. Then they arrange a phone call and a meeting, if possible.
The first one was Jeffrey. It was Christmas and the team walked down Market Street in the city of San Francisco spotting down-and-out people. “We asked every homeless person we met if they would like to record a holiday message to a loved one”, says the website. And so did Jeffrey, who claimed to be from a small town in Pennsylvania and who hadn’t had news from his family in 22 years. The message was addressed to his sister, niece and nephew.
Kevin went back home and browsed that little town in Facebook. “I looked up the town on Facebook and there was a Facebook group. Posted the video there and asked the admins if they could share it. And within an hour it had been shared hundreds of times, liked thousands of times and made the local news that night. His sister was tagged in the post the first 20 minutes of being on the website”, Adler told NowThisNews.
“A fundraiser was held and $5000 was raised. Within three weeks, he reunited with his sister on a phone call. Jeffrey had been a missing person for 12 years”, he added on the website of Miracle Messages.
And so after this foundation partnered with St. Anthony’s Foundation they met Johnny. “Three weeks after posting his video, Johnny’s 4 siblings and their families flew out to reunite with their brother, who we later discovered had been a missing person for 22 years”.
So far their “global network of volunteer messengers” have got to deliver 30 messages out of 70 and to reunite 15 homeless people and their families, according to their web page. These stories have been featured on over 150 media across the US.
They have a bigger goal, they say: “To mobilize the internet to reunite the world, helping 1% of the 100 million homeless people on earth reconnect with their loved ones by 2021”. The figure is from a global survey carried out by the United Nations.
“Social media can be used for social good”, Adler told NowThisNews.
Image by Miracle Messages