Emma's 16th Birthday
For Emma's 16th birthday EW.net sent her two gifts. The first part was the iTunes project. Fans contributed towards the purchase of songs from iTunes which would be given to Emma. The fans were allowed to select the song they wished to send, and could include a personal message to Emma. The contributions were enough so that an iPod Nano was also purchased to load the songs on. The second part was a book of Fan Profiles. These were pages designed by the fans with information about themselves, what they like, and their messages to Emma.
This project was organized by Jo, webmiss at the time. In late February, Jo announced she was stepping down as webmiss, and the site went on hiatus. The project was already complete though and it was sent to Emma. Below are some pictures of the iPod and the notebook of fan profiles.
In early September Emma attended the premiere for Rupert Grint's Driving Lessons. Our staff member Carol was there and got the chance to talk briefly with Emma. Upon hearing that Carol was from EW.net, Emma mentioned Jo and the birthday project, saying she wanted to contact her. This was captured on video by our friends at HarryPotterDeluxe.com, and a short clip is below.
About two weeks later we were contacted by someone close to Emma on her behalf. Emma had written a thank you letter for her birthday present and wanted to send it to us. She had written it shortly after her birthday, but the site had been on hiatus then. Arrangements were made, and we received the letter the next day.
