Crowdfunding bid to bail out Greece

Campaign raises over €30,000 in a day

ABritish shoeshop employee has raised over €30,000 (Dh123,280, $33,575) in its first day through an online crowdfunding project to help Greece meet its IMF debt repayment due yesterday.

A day after its launch, nearly 2,000 people had donated to the IndieGoGo project “Greek Bailout Fund”, reaching 0.002 per cent of the final target of the €1.5 billion needed to make the payment.

“All this dithering over Greece is getting boring,” said 29-yearold Thom Feeney, the page’s creator.

“Why don’t we the people just sort it instead? The European Union is home to 503 million people, if we all just chip in a few euro then we can get Greece sorted and hopefully get them back on track soon. Easy.”

Should the

project be successful, donors will receive perks ranging from a postcard of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, a feta and olive salad or a Greek holiday for two, depending on the size of the contribution.

“I can understand why people might take it as a joke, but crowdfunding can really help,” said Feeney. “I just thought, sod it, I’ll have a crack.”

Initially, there was a small Greek island on offer for anyone who came in with the full total, but IndieGoGo asked Feeney, who works in central London, to remove the offer as the Greek government had not agreed to it.

“A Greek lady emailed to say that she found that perk offensive, which I apologised profusely for, I certainly didn’t mean offence,” he explained.

With publicity increasing around the project, the tally was increasing at around €5,000 per hour.