Community is a Beautiful Thing by @machuga
Today I witnessed a beautiful thing emerge from an awful situation.
I started off the day by hearing from my buddy, Mark Provan, that the offer to continue at his internship had been withdrawn due to financial complications at the company. Without delving into Mark’s personal life, he was relying on this job to maintain his way of life and was rather (understandably) upset by the whole ordeal. I must say I’m astounded that he never lost his cool and kept good spirits about it despite being rather stressed. In an effort to secure funds for he and his girlfriend he reached out to the Forrst community for help in locating any freelance work, job positions, or advice people could offer. Just minutes after Mark tweeted about his post, Forrst retweeted him, instantly boosting Mark’s morale.
Within an hour or two, Mark had several replies offering advice, help, and positions. He almost had an entire novel of help and advice written by my friend and coworker, Jon-Paul Lussier (t4nkd). By the time he left work today he was pretty positive he was going with one of the offers.
I was outright astounded how awesome people, and the community as a whole, responded to a fellow member in need. Mark is an great and humble guy and really it couldn’t have happened to a better person. I just wanted to make sure that this display of community and helpfulness was not completely overlooked by the masses, and I could at least spread it to my followers on twitter and visitors to my blog. This is what a community should be, and am incredibly proud of what I witnessed today.
Thank you, everyone :)