It makes perfect sense to me that Gradon made the Big Apple the next stop in his 10 events for 10 charities goal for SM4SC. The city is full of need, and I imagine choosing the charity to focus on was a bigger challenge than the location for the event. Gradon settled on City Harvest, a New York food bank, hoping to help the rising number of the city’s hungry.

If you want to attend, you should go over to the SM4SC blog and check out the event page for New York City to sign up. The cost is minimal, goes to a good cause, and you get some serious bang for your buck in the big city, from music and drinks to auction prizes. Highly recommended for a way to go out on the town for less while also helping people in need.

The specific details are:

LOCATION: Roger Smith Hotel, 501 Lexington Ave, New York, NY

DATE: Friday, April 3, 2009

TIME: 7:00 – 10:00 PM

TICKETS:

Online tickets: $45

Groups of 2 or more: $35 each

Any unsold tickets may be purchased in person on the night of the event for $50

Here’s what you get with your admission:

• Open bar from 7-8:30 (no, we really mean it)

* Free signature cocktail all night

* Live performances from Marissa Lerer and Walt Ribeiro

* A whole bunch of awesome auction prizes available for bid

* Awesome raffle giveaways and prizes

* Meet a bunch of people you didn’t know before (in real life anyway)

* And of course, the good karma of helping a New Yorker in need

If you can’t make it to the event, either because you have a previous engagement or live elsewhere, you can still help the cause. All you have to do is use the widget below and on the SM4SC site to donate something as small as a dollar or as large as Manhattan. I do hope you go though. You’ll get to meet Meg Fowler and Gradon Tripp (aka Twitter’s Cutest Cross Borders Couple ™), you’ll get drinks and prizes and the gift of song and you’ll be having fun while helping feed the hungry – how can you go wrong?

The best part about this fundraiser is that it started as a small, offhand idea and has grown exponentially into something fully scalable to a multitude of charity events of all types. From a vague notion of “helping effect real world” change, Gradon Tripp and friends have grown this into a way to leverage our formidable social networks into a force to be reckoned with, and that is something I’ve been preaching for ages, using our networks for real, tangible change.

Kudos to Gradon and Dmitri, and to their sponsors and the rest of the social media community for embracing this wave of giving back.