Greece debt crisis: Campaign to crowdfund Greek bailout ends with €2m... or 0% of total needed

Campaign organiser Thom Feeney wasted no time in launching the campaign again

According to the numbers for the original campaign, 7500 people donated enough to be rewarded with a Greek feta and olive salad and 11,300 donated the €10 needed to be rewarded with a bottle of Ouzo

A crowdfunding campaign trying to raise €1.6 billion to bail out Greece has ended with contributions just shy of the €2 million mark – or 0 per cent of the total needed to make a difference to Greece.

Campaign organiser Thom Feeney wasted no time in launching the campaign again. "There is a humanitarian crisis in Greece, not just an economic crisis. For those reasons I am launching a new campaign, with flexible funding so that any and all money raised can be invested to help the people of Greece," Feeney said.

According to the numbers for the original campaign, 7500 people donated enough to be rewarded with a Greek feta and olive salad and 11,300 donated the €10 needed to be rewarded with a bottle of Ouzo.

Just seven people had contributed the €5000 necessary to win a Greek holiday for two.

Since the campaign ended without reaching its target, is not required to reward participants.

Feeney, who is 29 and lives in Bethnal Green, London, said he was fed up of European politicians failing to act to help the Greek people.

“€1.6bn is a relatively small in the grand scheme of things,” Feeney told The Independent. “In fact, you could raise that money by everyone in the EU just having a feta and olive salad for lunch today.

So why don't we just do that? Bypass the dithering politicians and the people of Europe fund a bailout. We get a tasty lunch, Greece gets economic stability.”

Feeney said he had no connection to Greece, other than consuming a lot of their national produce.

Feeney has been overwhelmed with positive comments. “OK Greece has made mistakes, but let’s forgive them and do ‘the right thing’ by supporting them from the grassroots of society,” said Phil Butterworth on the Indiegogo page.

One commenter pointed out that for Feeney to reach the €1.6bn target, he would need to raise €200,000 a minute.