Who Will Be The Next Carson King?

By Brian Newton, CPA

The annual Cy-Hawk showdown took place on September 14^th and the watercooler talk shortly after was less about the game and more about:

Thunder, lightning, and weather delays
ESPN’s College Game Day
The controversy surrounding the University of Iowa’s marching band
Carson King

By now, I’m sure you’ve heard of Carson King - the young man who showed up at College Game Day with a hand-written sign reading “Busch Light Supply Needs Replenished” along with his Venmo ID. From there social media took over and the story took off.

By 1:00 that day, random people from around the country had donated over $1,600 to help replenish Carson’s Busch Light supply, not a bad return on a $2.00 piece of poster-board and a Sharpie. He easily could have kept quiet, hoped for a few more dollars to come in and walked away with some extra money in his pocket. Instead, he sent out this single tweet “With all the donations my @CollegeGameDay sign for @BuschBeer has received, I will be donating all but enough for a case of Busch Light to @uiowa Children’s Hospital. We’re at over $1,600 right now...!” As write this article the contributions to his Venmo account is in excess of $135,000. Busch Light and Venmo have both re-tweeted that they will match his contributions to the Children’s Hospital. In less than one week, a sign and single tweet have raised well over $400,000 to help sick children and their families. I’m sure Mr. King had no idea of how things would play out when he decided to show up at Jack Trice that morning!

For some reason, this story really hit home and left me thinking about a few things…

Social media is extremely powerful (both good and bad)
The actions of one person can make a huge impact
Despite all of the negativity in the news, there are still a lot of really good people around us
What would I have done if I were in Carson King’s shoes?
Why are Iowans so passionate about Busch Light?

September is the Iowa Society CPAs 5^th annual month of service, where CPA firms across Iowa work in conjunction with the Iowa Society CPAs to give back to our communities. While we won’t be raising $400k for the Children’s Hospital, our team members will be giving their time and resources to support many great organizations in our communities by:

Packaging meals for Meals from the Heartland
Supporting the American Cancer Society’s Blooming with Hope program
Participating in a LifeServe blood drive in conjunction with ISCPA
Collecting travel items for Make-A-Wish
Serving meals at Hope Ministries Hope Café
Donating spare change to the DMARC Food Pantry through their Iowa/Iowa State donation challenge.
Volunteering at Evening Under the Stars for the Madison County Conservation Board

While I’m both fascinated and inspired by the Carson King story, I’m just as proud of our team and their willingness to participate in our month of service projects and throughout the year. Each day we are presented with opportunities to make decisions that will impact others and I hope that this story of one man’s selflessness will inspire you. You never know when you might have the opportunity to become the next Carson King!

Brian Newton, CPA | Shareholder
BNewton@MHCScpa.com