Danni Messina hoped to raise some money for Memphis, Tenn.-based St. Jude Children's Research Hospital when she posted a tweet Saturday, but she did not expect the post to go viral and draw more than $50,000 in donations, according to The Spokesman-Review.
"This time of year is about giving — this year, I am giving back to St. Jude & the families who are supported by their amazing services," Ms. Messina tweeted, adding that she would donate $0.25 for every retweet and $0.50 for every favorite the tweet recieved. As of Thursday, the post received 203,039 retweets and 470,423 likes.
Though Ms. Messina was prepared to donate $1,000 of her own money, she said the reactions to her tweet far exceeded her expectations. She couldn't possibly match the response with an appropriate donation, so she took to the crowd-funding website GoFundMe and raised $58,151.