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Saraya International, a global development firm, and the Rockefeller Foundation, which both provided organizational support for the flight to Uganda, as well as another company involved with the evacuation, confirmed to the AP that the flight was chartered by the emergency collaboration financed through Marcus’ Go FundMe campaign. “It’s beyond humbling that they have that faith in me, that they’re willing to put significant amounts of money into hands that I trust,” Marcus told The Associated Press. More than 121,000 people had donated to the campaign after Marcus made an appeal to his 832,000 followers, making it one of the largest humanitarian fundraisers in GoFundMe’s history. On Wednesday, their mission “Operation Flyaway” helped ferry 51 people from Afghanistan to Uganda on a privately chartered plane financed by the GoFundMe campaign. Along with his followers, Quarantino raised $7 million within days on GoFundMe to launch rescue missions into Afghanistan to evacuate as many people as possible, many of whom said they had been threatened by the Taliban. Quarantino is the alter ego of 25-year-old Tommy Marcus of New York City, previously best-known for his liberal memes and his jokes about opponents of COVID-19 vaccinations. withdrawal from Kabul made it to safety with help from an unexpected place: Instagram influencer Quentin Quarantino. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.ĭozens of desperate Afghans who had been trying to flee the Taliban before Tuesday’s deadline for the U.S.
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"This Afghanistan effort is not going to be over for a while - we are aiming to save everyone we possibly can.This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. "I just want to continue making a positive impact on the world," he says. "Once the virus became political, I felt a need to use my platform to speak out for causes I believed in for the good of our country and the world."Īs for what he'll use the quentin.quarantino account for in the future, Marcus doesn't have any set plans. "I’ve been making memes for four years, and as a very politically oriented person and an advocate for many social justice causes, was a natural fit," he says. "As of writing this, I have raised close to $7 million in 2021."Īnd while quentin.quarantino is still a relatively new platform, Marcus had previously grown a following on another meme account where he was able to gain an understanding of the power that can be leveraged on social media. All of my fundraisers have raised at least six figures," he says. "My first fundraiser was a three-day fundraiser for Planned Parenthood, which raised $1.2 million.
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This content is not available due to your privacy preferences. Days prior, however, Marcus was already using his Instagram platform to speak out about the imminent risk to Afghan citizens and even shared his thoughts in a post "liked" by over 55,000 people. It was on Tuesday that people across the world gained insight into the conflict in Afghanistan, as the Taliban seized power in the country just two weeks after the United States withdrew troops after a two-decade war. "I decided I would do something to help Afghanistan last week, but it took a lot of research, vetting, phone calls, Zooms, to figure out the right effort with the most just cause." "I have built a really emotional bond with my audience over the past year and a half, and it was only natural to step in and help," Marcus tells Yahoo Life of his latest fundraising efforts, which aim to fund emergency flight rescues for Afghans at risk. Little did the 25-year-old living in New York City know that just over a year later the Instagram account would be used for the greater good by raising millions of dollars to save lives in Afghanistan. Tommy Marcus started the meme account on the first day of New York City's coronavirus lockdown on March 13, 2020, as a way to cope with the "absurdity" of the pandemic, the quarantine to come and the mixed feelings of people across the globe. A meme artist whose meme account goes by the name raised over $5 million to help people in Afghanistan.