The Oatmeal’s Campaign To Save Nikola Tesla’s Lab Site Proves Successful, $900K+ Raised
The Oatmeal’s campaign to save the lab of scientific hero and geek extraordinaire Nikola Tesla from becoming yet another Long Island strip mall has been a success, with a sudden donation of $33,000 pushing the amount over goal and securing funding to purchase the site and create a Nikola Tesla science center in Shoreham, New York.
The push for funding began only a few days ago, and The Oatmeal’s Matthew Inman’s appeal to the internet at large was as compelling as it was direct. With a matching grant of $850,000 from New York State, the campaign raised the same amount would yield enough money to purchase the site and outbid a developer with the benefit of having the tract of land preserved as a historic site in the future.
Donations to save Nikola Tesla’s lab site began to pour in, and hundreds of thousands of dollars were raised in a matter of days.
Yesterday, Inman updated his Twitter followers with news the campaign was going very well, saying:
Almost at 3/4 of a million dollars:is.gd/UXbJTdAlso t-shirts are back if you donate $50
— Matthew Inman (@Oatmeal) August 20, 2012
This evening, another update was posted confirming that the goal of the campaign had been reached. His most recent updates read:
Wow, someone just donated $33,000 at the last minute and put us over our goal!$873,169 REACHED!
— Matthew Inman (@Oatmeal) August 21, 2012
With the matching grant from NY State, this puts us at $1.7 million raised in 6 days to try and buy the property.FAN-GODDAMN-TASTIC.
— Matthew Inman (@Oatmeal) August 21, 2012
Still, it would appear that the long-dead genius inventor has many fans. Donations have not abated, which is an excellent thing, as any excess funds will go to building a science center at the site for visiting Tesla fans. You can track the progress of the “Let’s Build A Goddamn Tesla Museum” over at IndieGogo.
