Last week I told you about how the American flag Facebook overlay came to be. After meeting the girl from Peru I then reached out to Rick Love, the husband of a childhood friend of my wife. He and his family had recently come home from Zambia, Africa where they worked for six years as missionaries. While on the mission field he had taught himself how to program and seemed confident he could help. With a great leap of faith on both parts we started this journey developing an overlay for the country of Peru. One of the first things Rick said to me was,
“Why not just make overlays for every country in the world?”
I asked how long that would take. Rick laughed and said just a few extra minutes and explained he would do some geeky computer stuff and it would automate some of his hard coding. I was blown away! What I thought would take six months turned into just a month or two and ProfilePictureFlag.com was born. With all of the custom overlay requests we continued to receive it soon became clear that needed a broader brand then just country flags and that is where our current website ProfileOverlays.com came from. Our overlay software has been used in over 236 countries and territories around the world and millions have used our free software. This has caused our team to grow and our most recent team member, Chase Williams, is a native of Oklahoma who just happens to own a coffee plantation in El Salvador!
So what does this have to do with Uniting America Again? Well, to get this all going and allow for millions to overlay their profile pictures on Facebook it took a team working together. On our team we have two combat veterans, a software developer who was planning her wedding and is now expecting her first child, the grandson of a Syrian refugee, a missionary returning from Africa and an El Salvador coffee plantation owner. We also have countless volunteers and sponsors who help keep this going.
This week we had a terrorist attack that took the lives of 49 Americans. Now is the time for America to come together in unity. Now is the time to help, to love and to serve each other. We did not expect to launch this website for a few more weeks, but since America needs unity even more now we went ahead and launched UnitingAmerica.org
The entire goal of this website is to aid in “Uniting America Again.”
Leading up to July 4th we will be releasing a piece of software that has never been seen before in social media. We want to use this software to help in “Uniting America Again.” You might think that changing your profile picture to an American flag doesn’t really do anything. Well, it does. It makes a statement that all of us should be able to make and relate to here in the USA, and that is, “We are Americans.” Let us set aside our race, creeds, religion, gender, ethnicity…etc. and this 4th of July focus on what we have in common. We are free. We are Americans. This is what our flag stands for. Are you with me?
Respectfully,
Tony Weedn
“Uniting America Again”
#UnitingAmerica
To read our previous weeks click below:
Week 1: The Largest Social Media Campaign in History
Week 2: Car trouble, Flying kites, and Americans helping Americans
Week 3: US soldiers and Grandson of Syrian refugee Uniting America
Challenges:
1) If you haven’t already Join the movement by going here
2) Share with 3 people you believe truly care about Uniting America Again
3) Comment below