Yet another inspiring story about how social media can make a difference. Blogs, Twitter, Podcasting, etc aren’t tools being used to waste time. They aren’t just about being heard, and getting your voice out there. It’s about relationships. Connecting with people.

I personally haven’t gotten involved in this too much partly because I haven’t been on Twitter that much in recent weeks, and partly because I personally don’t know how I can really help (can’t donate online because I don’t have a credit card).

Susan Reynolds is an artist, author and just a really creative person. She’s been quite involved in Twitter and Second Life, and just building relationships in these digital realms. Recently, she has been diagnosed with cancer. After a “full afternoon and multiple stab wounds”, as she put it, she needed something cool to help keep bleeding down and relieve the pain, and finding traditional ice packs too heavy, she decided to use a bag of frozen peas. She took a photo of it, and shared her story on Twitter.

A few days later, Cathleen Rittereiser suggested that people donate the cost of a bag of frozen peas to fund cancer research. Susan’s friends took that off-the-cuff remark, and ran with it. And as of today, we now have the Frozen Pea Fund, which will be raising money for breast cancer research, in Susan’s name. Lots of people are contributing in different ways. Spreading the message by inserting peas into their avatars (pea-vatars as they call it), building the wordpress site, and many other ways I’m probably unaware of.

You can read more from Connie Reece. Or you can go straight to the Frozen Pea Fund and donate.

I just thought I’d try to help by spreading the word. Social media, all this blogging and Twittering and all, is about real people. It’s about real connections being formed. It’s about a real difference being made. Why don’t you join in?