How Releasing 1,500,000 Balloons Went Horribly Wrong - Balloonfest '86

Why do charities always spend ridiculous amounts of money on doing everything BUT the charitable work?So much is wasted. So I donate to a friend who wanted to feed homeless people. He bought a cheap truck and 3 nights a week he, his family and some volunteers took a truck full of hot food to people on the streets. Five yrs later he has 4 trucks and a roster of volunteers (me included), gets donated toiletries, and goes to thrift stores begging for the bedding, furniture and clothing they find too yuck to sell, takes it home to wash and salvage. All free of charge, all volunteers,while he holds down a full time job. THAT is a charity.

The money wasted could have housed all the homeless in the city for a year .... Just plain stupid ....

Imagine if they had used that money, the time, the volunteers, the energy in actually HELPING PEOPLE in need. But no, they wanted balloons. Eye roll.

Was born in 1983 and my parents always hated the United Way, as long as I can remember. Now I have some idea why they hated them for so long. The waste and destruction from this, not to mention irresponsibility with donor funds, is truly epic.

Man, humanity was unbelievably stupid back then. ..oh wait, they still are.

It's amazing how you manage to stretch a 30 second story to 15 minutes.

"No one could have foreseen the chaos that would ensue..." Well, someone with a functioning brain stem could, I think.

As a professional helicopter pilot, I cannot count how many times I've had to avoid big bunches of balloons that some careless idiot just let loose. The silvery mylar balloons are especially dangerous as they last much longer and keep going and going. Hang on to your balloons people!

2 dead men 1 injured horse 1 world record broken A helium shortage Environmental catastrophe ... Dont release balloons.

im so early that the tittle said 150 million balloons instead of 1.5 million balloons....

Wtf were they thinking??? Not one person but numerous people agreed to this!!! This just BLOWS my mind 🤯

Glad you mentioned the nonrenewable nature of helium. People don't understand that once it's gone, it's really, really gone.

So glad I watched this, very educational. I was going to release three million balloons this weekend, now I know it's not a good idea.

Note to self: Never give any money to charity organisations that use my hard earned money for balloons instead of charity.

I remember releasing balloons in Middle School as part of the 80's anti-drug campaign. Each student wrote their name on a balloon and we all released them at once. I always wondered what happened to the balloon I released. Hopefully, it didn't kill anybody.

I remember seeing this stunt when I was a kid and even than I thought it was a dumb idea. Not one person had the foresight to think where these balloons would end up? Did they think these balloons would continue floating up into space? 🤦🏾‍♂️ They could've took that $500k, put it in a Vanguard mutual fund, waited 30 years, and they'd have over a billion dollars for their little charity.

I can only imagine how many water life died swallowing balloon rubber after this thoughtless catastrophe.

Seems like a lot of money , that the charity could've used to do something productive.

I remember that fiasco. But I didn't know about the two people that died because of it, and I didn't know about the horse farm either. Obviously much more tragic than I originally thought it was.

'...ignites a basic childlike joy...' No not joy, literal sadness. I would cry for hours >:C