charity: water is a non-profit that brings clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. The organization has been operating since 2006, but a global community of passionate microbloggers has propelled this group to gather worldwide recognition for its efforts.

In September 2008, a group of Twitterers based in London UK decided to organise an event where the local Twitter community could socialize offline; meet the faces behind the avatars, enjoy some entertainment, have a few drinks and tie this in with a food drive and fundraising effort for a local homeless charity.

The bulk of the event was organized in under two weeks, via Twitter and utilized the talents and financial support of the local Twittersphere to make this happen.

Around the world similar stories started appearing of local Twitter communities coming together and taking action for a great cause. Twestival was born out of the idea that if cities were able to collaborate on an international scale, but working from a local level, it could have a spectacular impact.

Seeing how these tight-knit local communities could gather together and tackle seemingly impossible feats in a short amount of time, charity:water saw the Twitter community as an opportunity to help raise awareness to the global crisis they seek to remedy.

People Will Rally Behind a Good Idea

First the idea was born, then volunteers started pouring in. Tony Scott set up Twestival.com and enabled each participating city to set up their own page. Amiando came on board to help event organizers with online RSVP tracking. Mashable partnered to promote the event worldwide. Tipjoy built widgets and organized a channel to raise donations.

The sheer number of people involved in this event and the heart and passion going into all of the planning, organizing and promotion have my jaw dropped on the floor. Many times in today’s society we are plagued with thoughts of how terrible most people are and the newsrooms of the world continue to pummel us with bad news, but the truth is that good-natured people with good intentions DO exist in the world. Twestival is being organized by those people.

Join Us Tomorrow Night and Support Twestival’s Cause

If you’d like to become part of this monumental fundraising event, stop by http://desmoines.twestival.com (or whichever city you are from) for more information. It’s not too late to donate a few bucks and help those in need.

I’ll be at Mars Cafe, 2318 University Ave tomorrow night (Thursday, February 12) and hope to see you there.

If you’re still not convinced, I’ll leave you with a video from the folks at Lava Row about why you should get involved:

The bulk of those in attendance are all users on Twitter, which makes these types of events even more fun because you get to connect face-to-face with people you normally just talk to online in 140-character bursts. I was able to meet several new people who I’d not yet been introduced to and I made several new connections that I think will lead to great opportunities in the future.

To some people it may seem awfully strange that members of a common website could come together in person and support causes and our community the way #dmtweetup does, but our group is very unique in the way that we operate. Through the common ground and transparency of Twitter, users are able to learn about and be introduced to people they may have never met otherwise. Also, because we have that commonality in Twitter, it gives us all a sense of camaraderie and we go out of our way to support each other. People answer each others questions, pass along job leads, donate to good causes and show their support in any way they can.

It was great to see so many people (and new faces) at last night’s event as it really showed the organic networking power of good people here in Des Moines and a few strings of messages on the web.

Thanks to Dan Welk (@clickphotodm) of Click Photography, Metromix captured a number of photos from last night’s event, including this one of Robby Glazebrook and myself.

ABC5, the first local news station on Twitter (@ABC5_WOI), put together a great video story on the event.