One Million Pixels for Charity

(PRLEAP.COM) In December, while up late one night surfing the Internet, Georgetown University law student Stephanie Michelle came across an article on CNN.com about UK student Alex Tew’s MillionDollarHomepage. From that article the idea Patriot Pixels was born, but not before several failed attempts at creating something unique.

"I had initially intended to make a similar site with slightly different functionality and sell my pixels at half the price," Stephanie says. "I thought that was a novel idea; half a million dollars isn’t bad." After spending three days working on a site design, Stephanie decided to Google and see what she could find. The results? More than 500 pixel ad sites. Some were selling pixels as low as a penny and others were just giving away space.

"How could I compete with that?" asked Stephanie. She decided to delete all of her files and didn’t think anything more about it until the next morning when several ideas just popped into her head. "Thing is, I didn’t want to just make money. I wanted to do something that would have a positive impact on the lives of others." She identifies talk show icons Oprah Winfrey and Ellen "DeGenerous" DeGeneres as sources of her inspiration. And that’s how Patriot Pixels was really born.

The site was launched the second week of January 2006. Although she hopes to make enough money to pay off her law school debts and her last 3 semesters of school, Stephanie is donating 10% of her net profits for all pixels sold by June 30, 2006, split equally between sister charities The Fisher House Foundation and the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. A former United States Air Force officer, it was natural for her to select these organizations, both of which support military personnel wounded in action and those seriously ill. Stephanie is not affiliated with either of these organizations and, although her efforts have been applauded by Fisher House Foundation’s Vice President of Communication James Weiskopf, she was very careful to not give the impression of any endorsements.

"Of the many charities there, they are just the two I have chosen to support," she says. "I learned about Fisher House while in graduate school for video production. I was in an Air Force-sponsored program, so most of my projects were military-related. I was looking for a video topic and came upon the Fisher House at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. I learned about Intrepid on the Fisher House Web site."

Patriot Pixels has already had over 300 hits, but so far Stephanie hasn’t sold any pixels. But she isn’t discouraged.

"It’s only been a week and I haven’t done much advertising. I told a few friends and family about it, but that’s it. I haven’t been as lucky as Alex; they didn’t buy any of my pixels. School starts in a few days and I just started a new job that keeps me really busy, so I haven’t been able to give the sites all of my attention as I was before. But I’m not giving up because I believe in these projects."

By "these projects," Stephanie is referring to two additional sites she launched a few days after Patriot Pixels. Pink Pixels and Red Pixels benefit the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation and amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, respectively. The colors, of course, relate to the ribbons supporters wear.

"I don’t know anyone with breast cancer or AIDS, but I thought both foundations were worthy causes. I had surgery to remove a lump from my breast in April 2005. Fortunately, the lump was benign. That’s the closest I’ve personally come to a breast cancer scare, but it certainly made me more aware."

Pink Pixels and Red Pixels have had even fewer hits than Patriot Pixels.

"I do worry that people won’t take me seriously and that they’ll think I’m just running some sort of scam. I don’t know what to do to combat that. I don’t have my photo on my site like Alex did, so no one knows who I am or that I’m a real person. I’ll consider posting a photo when sales start rolling in, but for now, I just want to retain that aspect of my privacy. Of course, it makes it harder for the charities to take me seriously, too, I think, but Jim Weiskopf has been very encouraging and has even put in a good word with the folks at Intrepid when they called to get his thoughts on my idea."

For more information on Patriot Pixels, Pink Pixels, and Red Pixels, please visit www.patriot-pixels.com, www.pink-pixels.net, or www.red-pixels.net or contact Stephanie Michelle directly at stephanie@patriot-pixels.com.