Everyone is so used to seeing these little kids on the streets that they don’t even notice them anymore. This changes in a second when you’re reached in a way that you never expected by a message directed at you, coming from a homeless child you’re seeing in the middle of the street. People also avoid giving money directly to them because they never know where this money will go, so this was a way to facilitate the help, since they’d donate a small amount right there, following a link on the SMS, to a serious institution that they knew would help them.

The stunt happened in different days, on some of the busiest intersections around the city of Rio. It’s hard to know the exact number of people impacted, but what we could measure was very pleasing to the eye and the heart: A sudden increase in donations while the campaign was happening: the number of permanent sponsors of the institution (those who register to donate monthly) increased over 18% and visits to the website almost tripled (source: OBRJ).