Founder of TripAlertz.com Announces Plans to Donate Up to $132,000 to Haiti Rebuilding Efforts

The donation was inspired by the TwitChange Celebrity Tweet Auction, where TripAlertz gifted $32,000

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Sep 28, 2010, 02:12 ET

BOSTON, Sept. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- This past weekend, the first ever celebrity tweet auction TwitChange concluded, raising more than $500,000 to help aHomeinHaiti.org. The organization will use the donations to finish rebuilding the Miriam Center, which houses and educates Haitian children with cerebral palsy, severe autism, and other major life challenges. It is one of the only facilities of its kind in Haiti. As part of this auction, the new collective buying travel website TripAlertz.com donated $32,000 to help in the rebuilding efforts. TripAlertz has pledged to donate $1 to aHomeinHaiti.org for every new member that joins the site (up to $100,000 total) through November.

TripAlertz, which launches sales in late October, supports many charities, such as Tourism Cares, CarbonFund.org, the Pachamama Alliance and the Foundation for Conscious Living, through travelers using collective buying power to obtain epic savings on premium hotels and resorts -- prices that are generally 20-40% below the leading public online travel sites. Each new member creates another dollar for charity, plus every member referred by another provides $1 of Trip Cash for that member's future travel.

"Our community of travelers enables us to negotiate great deals for our members, plus our success directly supports impactful charity," states Brendan Murphy, founder TripAlertz. "My goal is to use entrepreneurship as a positive force on the planet, as it creates benefits including job creation, greater freedom of expression, and the ability to direct consumer purchases to hotels that are sensitive to their environmental impacts."

Consumers can currently join the TripAlertz community for free and preview the travel deals at http://tripalertz.com. Joining only takes twenty seconds. There is no obligation to buy from TripAlertz to create donations for Haiti. Furthermore, when members buy getaways, a portion of every sale benefits charities. Members who would like to increase the donations can invite friends to join and designate their $1 in Trip Cash per friend to aHomeinHaiti.org. For instance, if a person invites 250 friends that join, $250 will go to Haitian relief.

"TripAlertz and our investors are committed to integrating philanthropy and sustainability throughout our business," said Murphy. "We are honored to participate in the TwitChange auction. We look forward to partnering with travelers and participating celebrities in donating another $100,000 to aHomeinHaiti.org." Starting in December, other great charities will be featured monthly.

TwitChange is the only celebrity auction where Twitter users bid to be followed by their favorite celebrity on Twitter; retweeted by their favorite celebrity; and/or mentioned by them in a special tweet. Through the TwitChange auction, TripAlertz has the benefit of being shared with the 25 million followers of Eva Longoria, Ryan Seacrest, Jeremy Piven, Demi Moore, Lenny Kravitz, Alicia Keys, Tony Hawk, MC Hammer, Tony Robbins, Paula Abdul, Gary Vaynerchuk, Stephen Fry, Travie McCoy, and Jewel Staite, plus other celebrities who may wish to join in spreading the word.