VERTU on Gignews!

http://www.gignews.com/breaking_news.htm

This link is probably only good few a little while, since it says "breaking news!"

Here is the text:

8 June 04
Second Life gives more life to Electronic Freedom Foundation
On May 28, thirty or so people gathered for a charity auction to raise funds for the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF). They bid on a variety of items, including one of a kind couture from the world's top designers and a set of sculptures from an up and coming artist, raising hundreds of thousands of dollars. What makes this event so unique is they gathered in the online world of Second Life and the hundreds of thousands they raised were in the game's currency - Linden dollars – that were then converted to US$900 on the currency exchange site Gaming Open Market (GOM).

This event was the culmination of a month-long fundraising campaign launched in Second Life by Virtual Economies Realizing True Usefulness (VERTU), a virtual non-profit organization founded by player Sarah Einstein. Einstein, who is known in world as Bhodi Silverman, started VERTU as a way to bring real world philanthropy to the gaming community. Said Einstein, "I wanted to create a way for the virtual community to participate in real world efforts for social justice and to bring awareness of these issues into Second Life."

Edited to include:

Oh, and here is the link to the story on Charity Channel:

VERTU News