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Shannon Cofrin Gaggero set a goal of $1,000, an amount she considered ambitious. A week later, the online and in-person campaign has raised 13 times that amount.
The family and other volunteers hosted the lemonade stand and bake sale in Virginia-Highland on Sunday. While that event netted $1,100, the majority of donations — more than 200 of them — have come from the paired virtual Facebook event.
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The Atlanta fundraiser follows the trend of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide donating to nonprofit organizations, prompted by images and audio of children crying for their parents. A Silicon Valley couple, David and Charlotte Willner, has raised more than $20,000,000.
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Like the Willners’ fundraiser, the Gaggeros' proceeds will go to the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Service, or RAICES, a Texas nonprofit that offers free and low-cost legal services to immigrants.
Gaggero, author of the blog "A Striving Parent," is not new to organizing these types of events. She previously helped start a parenting group to discuss issues of race and privilege at Charis Books and More.
The Gaggeros' fundraiser, which Shannon Cofrin Gaggero said prompted a few satellite lemonade stands across the country, ended at midnight Tuesday.
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