The Virtual Trevi Fountain: an international support website to grant people’s wishes for free!

Welcome to the Trevi Fountain website, created in 2005 by Media Arts Professor Samuelle Ducrocq, Ph.D. during a class exercise that consisted of inventing a concept for a website capable of changing the world. The students having asked the teacher to make an example by herself, she had the idea of inventing a virtual fountain because she had just returned from a trip to Rome, Italy. And the site was born! A few months later, no less than 8,000 wishes were posted by Internet users from everywhere (French-speaking, English-speaking and elsewhere!) of which more than 800 were granted by each other: a real mutual aid demonstrating the generosity initially quite Quebec but very quickly French-speaking then finally international!

Thus users from Morocco sent clothes to a single mother in Quebec, in difficulty to clothe her children. The users of the Fountain also followed the touching story of Cassandra, whose mother asked for help for her funeral in anticipation of the disconnection of the child’s respiratory assistance planned after the holidays, and who was supported by a half -dozen good Samaritans following his wish. Or the touching reunion of distant relatives. The generous support in used goods that some asked for and that others had too much and gave them, etc. etc. Many stories have even been presented live on TV (via Denis Levesque’s chronicles on RDI / TVA) while answerers and those granted met for the first time in real life, on the TV set to tell their touching story.

So much good news, topical good humor, which most people need these days: and this is where La Fontaine draws its strength: revealing the natural benevolence and humanity of most Internet users challenged by a wish , but also eager, like a child, to also believe in their luck by posting a dream sometimes from childhood… Because most of the time, wishes are realized more easily from one user to another who answers him – which gives rise to the subsequent post of the granted one, which tells how his wish was realized!; but also, and this is just as fantastic, many Internet users testified to the fact that they suddenly realized, some time later, that their wish had already been granted! By the magic of fate, chance or luck, everyone can go there according to their beliefs, but the fountain’s success rate (10% of wishes granted, i.e. more than 800 out of 8000 in less than a year time), still leaves many researchers dumbfounded, and which somehow makes us all dream… If our dreams seem to have a one in 10 chance of coming true, whereas until now, we didn’t even dare formulate them, it’s a safe bet that this site, which propels introspection to show courage, is enough to inspire hundreds of thousands of people! Especially since 17 years later, his concept of philanthropic mutual aid networking remains unique and unequalled, and above all, still just as urgent, relevant and necessary!

So much good news, topical good humor, which most people need these days: and this is where La Fontaine draws its strength: revealing the natural benevolence and humanity of most Internet users challenged by a wish , but also eager, like a child, to also believe in their luck by posting a dream sometimes from childhood… Because most of the time, wishes are realized more easily from one user to another who answers him – which gives rise to the subsequent post of the granted one, which tells how his wish was realized!; but also, and this is just as fantastic, many Internet users testified to the fact that they suddenly realized, some time later, that their wish had already been granted! By the magic of fate, chance or luck, everyone can go there according to their beliefs, but the fountain’s success rate (10% of wishes granted, i.e. more than 800 out of 8000 in less than a year time), still leaves many researchers dumbfounded, and which somehow makes us all dream… If our dreams seem to have a one in 10 chance of coming true, whereas until now, we didn’t even dare formulate them, it’s a safe bet that this site, which propels introspection to show courage, is enough to inspire hundreds of thousands of people! Especially since 17 years later, his concept of philanthropic mutual aid networking remains unique and unequalled, and above all, still just as urgent, relevant and necessary!