Audio By Carbonatix
Social media can help you make friends, get a job, keep up on the news, or find a deal at a local restaurant. It’s all fun and frivolous and quite addicting.
But to illustrate just how much more epic its power can be, consider the story of Anu Dwivedi, who is the focus of the “TinyFabKidney Fund” benefit that FnB is planning for Saturday night, and who urgently needs a kidney transplant. Incredibly, she found a donor through Facebook.
Diagnosed with chronic kidney disease a decade ago, Dwivedi was down to only 20 percent kidney functionality as of last October. The waitlist for an organ transplant was two to six years.
Then, last month, her daughter Kirti Dwivedi — a social media-obsessed food lover who instigated some food-related tweet-ups last year — created a Facebook page called Kidney Disease and My Tiny Mother, in the hopes of finding a donor.
Her acquaintance and fellow Twitterer Amy Donohue saw the page, signed up to be tested, and turned out to be a match. Now Donohue is enthusiastically on board to donate a kidney to Anu Dwivedi.
To help their cause — Twitter hashtag #TinyFabKidney, complete with its own Hello Kitty-inspired logo — they’re having a fundraiser at Scottsdale’s FnB this Saturday night, with special Indian dishes cooked up by chef Charleen Badman, in addition to the regular menu.
Half of all food sales from 10 p.m. to midnight will be donated to help Donohue during her time off for the surgery, as well as for Dwivedi’s out-of-pocket medical expenses. In addition, they’ll be taking cash donations, so even if you don’t have time to stay for a bite, you can still drop by and give to the TinyFabKidney fund.
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