College student's act of kindness goes horribly wrong

PULLMAN, Wash. – A college student's good-natured attempt to raise money for charity went horribly wrong, but all may turn out well in the end.

Danni Messina tweeted Saturday that she would donate money to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for every favorite or retweet the post received.

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By donating a quarter for every favorite, and 50 cents for each retweet, the Washington State University sophomore thought she would only need to shell out a few bucks.

Unfortunately for Messina's bank account, that's where things took a turn for the worse.

The post went viral in just hours, being retweeted almost 200,000 times and 450,000 favorites.

All-in-all, it would cost well over $200,000 for Messina to fulfill her pledge, something a simple college student could not afford.

Messina backtracked and quickly put together a GoFundMe account to help raise the money she had promised. The student also pledged $1,000 of her own money.

After an initial firestorm of controversy, many now support Messina's intentions and even she admits the attention the tweet received was unexpected.

As of Wednesday, the GoFundMe account has raised almost $55,000 for St. Jude.