Tennis Update: Serena Williams back from "digital death"
American tennis superstar, Serena Williams is “back from the dead”, or to coin it better “back from her digital death”. As part of a charity action organised by several celebrities, Serena underwent social media death for the cause.
However, she resurfaced only after five days of “staying under”. The 13-time Grand Slam Champion was part of the Digital Death/Buy Life campaign organised by musician Alicia Keys. The campaign required her to stay away from her Twitter and Facebook accounts and not post any updates till the one million U.S. dollars were rasied for the cause.
Digital Death was planned by Keys in support of AIDS research. Along with Serena, several other celebrities also took part in the campaign. These included names like Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Ryan Seacrest and Usher. The stars “digitally” died on 1st December 2010- World AIDS Day. Going slow at first, a generous contribution of five hundred thousand dollars by businessman Stewart Rahr brought the donations over the required mark five days later on 6th December.
Having met the required mark, Serena updated her twitter account. Her first Tweet after coming back to life was, "I am back from the dead! Thank you all so much for your donations and contributions! I have missed you guys!!!!!"
This is not the only charitable endeavour of the younger Williams sister. She also runs the Serena Williams Foundation (SWF). SWF is a charity organisation that helps youth affected by violent crimes and also provides educational opportunities for the underprivileged children. In 2009, she opened a school in Kenya for the education of young African children. This was the second school funded by the organisation in the past few years.
After the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, Serena along with Rafael Nadal, Kim Clijsters, Roger Federer and other such names of ATP and WTA put off the preparations for Australian Open while they played a charity match known as Hit for Haiti to raise money for the affectees.
As a tribute to her work in the research about breast cancer, she was awarded the Celebrity Role Model Award by Avon Foundation in 2003. The same year she also won the "Young Heroes Award" from Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater L.A. and Inland. The following year in 2004 she won the "Family Circle and Prudential Financial Player Who Makes a Difference Award".
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