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Snowball Battle Helps Washington Beat Blizzard Blahs

   Sarah Williams 10 February 2010

   The  huge  snowstorm striking Washington, D.C. and much of the eastern
   seaboard  10  February  leaves  many area residents with little to do.
   But  in  the  capital  of the United States, there is the option of an
   organized snowball fight.
   VOA writer and reporter Michael Lipin organized Wednesday's event, and
   a  previous  one Saturday, 6 February, that drew about 2,000 people in
   Washington's  Dupont  Circle.   He  came  up  with the idea during the
   winter's first major snowstorm on 19 December.

   "I  created  a  Facebook  group for the first time because I wanted to
   invite my friends to a snowball fight," he said.  "Rather than send an
   e-mail, where you would cut and paste 100 addresses, I thought well, I
   have a Facebook account, and the invitation goes out to all the people
   in your profile." Only six people came to that original snowball fight
   in December.
   But  when  the second big storm hit 6 February, Michael Lipin adjusted
   his  publicity  methods.  "I  sent out more invitations on my Facebook
   group,"  he  said.   "I asked a friend, Ami Greener, to help me spread
   the  word  out to his friends, and we thought, 'why don't we send some
   tweets out using Twitter?'"

   The tweets worked.  "Thursday morning we had 33 members in the group,"
   said  Lipin.   "By  the  end of Thursday, 1,000, by the end of Friday,
   4,000.   By  the  time  the  snowball fight started on February sixth,
   [there were] more than 5,000 in the group."

   The  snowball  fight  is  designed to combat cabin fever, the syndrome
   when  people  are cooped up too long in one place without contact with
   others. It is also open to participants of all ages.

   "There  were people posting messages on the group wall on Facebook who
   were  in  the  forties  and fifties saying, 'We were there and we felt
   like  kids again we had such a great time,'" said Lipin. "So it wasn't
   just  a case of teenagers, 20-somethings taking part, this was a broad
   range  of  people,  and it indicated to me that this is something that
   all  age  groups  can  enjoy  and  take  part  in,  and something more
   interesting to do on a snow day."

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