In a world where many Americans can’t afford medical treatment, one celebrity is helping raise money for families in need. Actress Kristen Bell is increasing the reach of individual GoFundMe pages by sharing them with her fans. She’s also putting some of her own money toward these fundraisers. This is part of a larger effort, led by content creator Tommy Marcus, to shed some much-needed light on patients who wouldn’t be able to access treatment otherwise.
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It all started when Marcus, aka Quentin Quarantino, reached out to the Veronica Mars star with an idea. Using his influence as an internet celebrity, he planned to share one online fundraiser every day with his followers. However, working with Kristen Bell would allow him to reach more people than he could on his own. So, he proposed a collaboration.
“I had this idea to harness this public energy around the broken healthcare system by sharing one health related GoFundMe every day for a week+ and changing the life of one family per day,” Marcus wrote in a DM to the actress, a screenshot of which was shared on Instagram.
He continued, “I get so many tragic health insurance related GoFundMes sent to me per week. Was wondering if you’d be interested in joining along starting tomorrow.”
Kristen Bell was eager to help, but she wanted to do even more.
Although Kristen Bell agreed to share these GoFundMe pages with her fans, the actress wanted to do more to help. She messaged the content creator that she wanted to donate $100,000 of her own money to families in need. Thrilled, Marcus came up with a great plan to distribute the Frozen star’s generous donation. A screenshot of this conversation was included in the same Instagram post.
“How about this — every fundraiser I post, once it hits half the goal, you close it out with the second half until we reach $100k spent on your end,” he suggested.
As Marcus told People, Bell’s response to his initial proposal far exceeded his wildest dreams.
“I first reached out to Kristen with the meager hope she might share one of my fundraising posts, like she frequently does,” he said. “I never imagined she’d respond with a $100,000 pledge to help me and the QQ community achieve change — that she’d respond not with a quick answer, but a real question: How can we use this money to do good?”
Bell’s reasoning?
“Something needs to be done, and this is my something,” she told People.
Another famous actor was inspired to get involved with this project.
Motivated by the work that Tommy Marcus and Kristen Bell have been doing, Matt Damon decided to get involved, too! He messaged the actress to offer a $100,000 donation from himself and his wife, Lucy. Marcus and Bell shared a screenshot from the conversation on Instagram.
As Marcus shared in a social media post, he realizes that GoFundMe pages are not a permanent solution to the issues with the American healthcare system. Ideally, families wouldn’t have to turn to crowdfunding just to afford medical care.
“We should not have to raise and give money in order for Americans to receive life saving medical treatment, but sadly, this is the reality,” he wrote. “We can’t let people do this on their own when so many of us can help. Until we can change the system, this is the reality. And we can be the helpers.”
You can find the source of this story’s featured images here and here.
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