Finally, there’s a feel-good reason to keep the Jeremy Lin puns coming. SeatGeek and Breadpig have teamed up to give away two tickets to the Knicks-Cavalier’s game at Madison Square Garden next Wednesday, February 29th . . . aaaaaand the chance to experience the Linsanity alongside Reddit cofounder and “all around good guy” Alexis Ohanian. (Those aren’t scare quotes, Mr. Ohanian really is the nicest, but we like that goodness is listed as part of his appeal.)
The philanthropic collabo is being facilitated by DonorsChoose.org. Mr. Ohanian told Betabeat that he will soon be joining the startup’s advisory board. “WOO for NY startups,” he emailed. Since this is for a good cause, we’ll refrain from asking him to step away from the pom-poms. Anyone who makes a donation of $10 or more towards physical education projects in New York City schools is eligible to win the tickets. The initiative, which did a soft launch last Friday, has already raised $1,561. Deadline for donations is next Monday at midnight.
Mr. Ohanian initially claimed to be the world’s biggest Jeremy Lin fan, but backed down after some gentle prodding. “I haven’t seen him play live (hence the idea for the contest!) and I accept that I may not in fact be his biggest fan,” Mr. Ohanian admitted. “But I adore him because he’s a validation of the geek’s worldview: ignore expectation, follow the data. I then realized my social enterprise, breadpig.com (a Newman’s Own for Nerds) made total sense to organize the fundraiser and asked Seatgeek (they were 110% stoked!).”
This isn’t the first time Mr. Ohanian’s gotten personally involved in a DonorsChoose fundraising initiative. Reddit broke records by raising more than $100,000 for Stephen Colbert’s “Restoring Truthiness” rally, a rejoinder to Glenn Beck, and helped raise more than $620,000 towards history and civics projects. Breadpig has also pimped out collaborators for the greater good. Of course, nothing as personal as that time Mr. Ohanian got his own facial hair involved.
