Tribute Balloon: a million balloons, a million stories.

Each morning I wake up and the first thing I do is to check my tributeballoon.com email to see if there have been any major user concerns and to make sure that the site is still up and running smoothly.  This morning, due to the Amazon EC2 outage, Tribute Balloon was down for a few hours (which allowed me to spend some time thinking about writing this post).  Instead of dozens of emails from upset users demanding to know where their balloons were, I was (yet again) amazed at and grateful for the quality and sincerity of the Tribute Balloon community.

A single email sat in my inbox this morning — Subject: [Report] not working.  After one simple sentence asking what was wrong with the site, she continued (completely unsolicited):

… but, believe me when I say, it is really the Absolute Best App. on [Facebook]!, well for me anyway.

When I discovered how I could just let my feelings go and send them out there, I was happily surprised because, so many people felt the same way.

And, I think they too, needed a way to vent freely and know there was someone else in their shoes, but maybe were afraid to say so, but we are all here for each other aren’t we?  This is just another perfect way to connect with others and not feel out of place, or maybe even awkward.

Be it a family member, friend, people in the service, survivors, and for me it is for my mom and dad and my loving pets!!  This is a great place for connecting with pretty much the whole world!

I am glad it is here for me and others as well, I do hope it will be back up and on site soon:)  Awsome, Idea!!

Sincerely,

Linda Betances <3

P.S. you have my permission to post this comment if you’d like!

[Thank you, Linda, for your sweet note and letting us share it.]

I’m posting this not as a pat on our backs (although it certainly is encouraging), but because Linda has captured the essence of the site that even I have been struggling to verbalize.  This has become a major part of what keeps us motivated to do what we do well (technology) to build communities that provide such positive energy to others, unbarred by distance. 

Here is one balloon (of thousands) that has touched me.  Suzy Bear reaches out for support for her 12-year old daughter, Emily Bell, who is suffering from Leukemia:

We have passed the millionth-balloon mark recently, and hope to see many more beautiful stories being shared and supported around the world.

Each balloon represents one story.  But with one story comes millions of words of kindness and support, prayers, advice, exchanges of experiences, and above all, friendships.

This post is for all of our users.  Tribute Balloon is what it is because of all of you, and your hearts.  Thank you for being part of this wonderful community! 

_______

Ching-Mei