Social Media Brightens Man's Final Weeks

In this age of cyber bullying and general on line nastiness, it's always gratifying to see social media come through for a guy who needs a break.

Scott Widak reads some of the mail he received,
prompted by a Reddit post by his nephew
Photo is from Mashable.  

This recently happened to Scott Widak, 47, with a big assist from his nephew Sean O'Connor.

Widak has Downs Syndrome, and is also dying of liver failure. O'Connor knew his uncle loves receiving mail, and wanted to cheer his uncle up. So he went on Reddit, posted his uncle's address and invited people to send Widak mail.

And send they did. Widak got tons of letters, packages and other offerings of good cheer via snail mail.

Reddit, understandably concerned about having personal information like mailing addresses posted online for the world to see, took down O'Connor's post after it had been up just four hours. But that was long enough for word to get out. Widak is still getting stuff by the bucketload.

"The mail that’s arrived has all been extremely positive and thoughtful,” says O’Connor, in a Mashable story on the mailing campaign.. “My family and I are amazed at how so many strangers could come together for a random act of kindness

O'Connor had mentiioned on Reddit that Widak likes Johnny Cash, so a lot of items had things related to the late country legend.

Sony Music Entertainment got wind of the campaign, and sent Widak 15 CDs and DVDs, mostly related to Johnny Cash.

All this confirms my beliefs in today's technology. Like any tool, it can be a force of evil, or in this case and many others, a force of good.

May the force of good be with you.