Twitter, Facebook draws social media users for Downtown Turkey Throwdown meal in Grand Rapids
Twitter, Facebook draws social media users for Downtown Turkey Throwdown meal in Grand Rapids
By Rachael Recker The Grand Rapids Press
November 23, 2009, 3:40PM
Emily Zoladz | The Grand Rapids PressKim Manns of Grand Rapids laughs about all the dessert choices at the Downtown Turkey Throwdown Monday on Monroe Center in front of Biggby Coffee. The event was part potluck, part charity and part social networking, asking people to bring a dish to pass and non-perishables to be donated. View photo gallery from event
GRAND RAPIDS — Downtown Turkey Throwdown instigator Danny Beckett grinned as he hacked at a turkey with a plastic knife and fork.
Monday afternoon’s inaugural two-hour event — part community potluck, part charity drive, part social networking tweetup — was originally cooked up on Twitter a week ago, and thus didn’t look exactly like grandma’s Thanksgiving dinner.
The dinner table was a buffet made of plywood boards and sawhorses located outside the downtown Biggby shop. Blood-related family members were replaced with members of the local online Twitter family, who sported nametags with @usernames for distinction.
About 90 Twitter and Facebook users attended the feel-good community get-together to share traditional homemade dishes, bring non-perishable food items for Mel Trotter and socialize with their online network.
Beckett, founder and CEO of Web and Marketing development company Spearia, spearheaded the event with fellow organizers and Twitter personalities StudioJewel owner Lisa Lehmann (@thebeadgirl), Rockford’s Corner Bar (@weinerwizard), downtown Biggby store owner Steve Antaya (@BiggbyDwtnGR) and local freelance writer Cindy Grace (@fuzzyredrobe).
Beckett, who also created the inaugural family-friendly ComStock ’09 event in September, is a faith-based entrepreneur who wanted to create another positive and unique community event.
“For me, it’s just about seeing people together ... having fellowship together,” Beckett said. “We just wanted to put (this event) out there and see what would happen.”
For a last-minute event that relied on the support of others, he was pleasantly surprised at the outcome, especially the amount of donated food items for Mel Trotter and the quality of the shared dishes.
“I was actually surprised. Honestly. I mean, you just never know,” he said.
Cindy Grace was happy to see that such a positive event could be produced via a social media outlet, where it isn’t just “misfits sitting behind a computer monitor.”
“I think it shows that social media isn’t for goofy stuff. It can do a lot of good,” she said.
Antaya — who slowly grew the content of his Biggby tweets from coffee rotation announcements to daily interactions with patrons on a personal level — couldn’t help organizing.
RELATED CONTENT http://photos.mlive.com/4469/gallery/downtown_turkey_throw_down/index.html target="_blank">Photo gallery
“We like doing stuff like this down here,” he said. “This was truly a community event.”
Jen Huizinga, the Public Museum’s marketing and PR coordinator, held a plate full of turkey and accouterments despite a strict diet.
“It’s just so much fun. It’s so cool when people come together for something so positive in such a hard economic time,” Huizinga said.
East Grand Rapids resident Amy VanFossen, 40, brought her apple upside-down cake to the event, which she first heard about on Facebook.
“We’re just always looking for things to do. It was a good excuse to bring things for Mel Trotter,” said VanFossen, who brought her 5-year-old daughter, Sarah.
And the usually picky eater didn’t hold back.
“She ate a lot,” VanFossen said. “She even ate the cranberries.”
Downtown Turkey Throw Down E-mail Rachael Recker: rrecker@grpress.com
The power of social media at work for charity. What a great community event! I wish I could have been there.
