(NewsNation) — TikTok creator and comedian Erin Hattamer began using her platform to show her support for Palestinian families struggling to survive in Gaza, inspiring a swell of support from other creators on the app.
Hattamer joined “NewsNation Live” to share her story, saying after she shifted her content to focus on helping Gazans, she received more requests than she could handle on her own.
“I’d always made a lot of political posts and whatnot and as I was posting more about what was happening in Gaza, more and more families would reach out asking for help. You know, can you share my GoFundMe? Can you share my story? And I was like, yeah, absolutely. Let’s do this. But then, you know, as it grew more and more and more, it became 50, 100 families and, you know, I don’t have the algorithm power, as we say, or time to do all of that,” Hattamer said.
So she put out a plea to other creators to help her amplify the stories of the Gazans with the #PassTheHat project, where creators with any size follower count can fill out a form and be assigned to amplify a family’s fundraiser.
“A lot of people of my generation or just in general get their information from social media, get their news information from social media. So the second you see anyone that you follow talk out about it, it’s kind of like you want to jump on the bandwagon. You want to do it too,” Hattamer said.
As the movement grew, the digital volunteer group Operation Olive Branch stepped in to help with the organizing efforts.
“They have this huge spreadsheet, they can go to the master list. There’s a bunch of families, they can choose to adopt a family. There’s all their stories, they’re all their GoFundMe is there and they can just take their GoFundMe link and share it with friends and family,” Hattamer said about Operation Olive Branch’s contribution to the effort.
On Sunday, an Israeli airstrike killed 27 people in central Gaza, mostly women and children, and fighting with Hamas raged across the north as Israel’s leaders aired divisions over who should govern Gaza after the war, now in its eighth month.
