Last December, Virginia resident Susan Reynolds underwent a needle biopsy to determine whether she had breast cancer.

To ease the pain and swelling afterward, Reynolds initially put an ice pack on her chest. But she didn’t like the feel of the ice pack, so she replaced it with a pack of frozen peas.

Reynolds wrote about this on her blog and included a picture of the pack of peas peeking out from her top. She also sent out tweets about the peas.

This started a wave of tweets about the peas, and scores of pea-themed photos ended up on Twitter and Flickr, the photo- sharing site.

You can read the full story here. As a side note, we would wish Keith heartfelt congratulations on his new position as Best Buy’s Community Manager!

Cancer is never part of the plan. It strikes unexpectedly, and it does not just strike an individual. Cancer affects an entire family — even an entire community, to varying degrees.

This past week many in our online community were saddened to hear that Tricia, the sister of Todd Andrlik (@ToddAnd on Twitter), was scheduled for a bilateral mastectomy on Saturday. Her story bears a striking resemblance to Susan Reynolds’s case: discovery of a suspected cyst, immediate diagnosis of invasive lobular carcinoma, and surgery just nine days later.

Tricia’s surgery went well, and the news is hopeful. Pathology reports will give clearer answers, but the surgeon appeared confident that the cancer had not spread to other parts of her body. However, she faces months of treatment — months when she will be unable to go back to work and her family will be faced with some staggering expenses. Even with insurance, out-of-pocket expenses for a cancer patient can be quite high.

To help his sister, Todd created a beautiful website — and he created a way for you to help Tricia and the Frozen Pea Fund at the same time. It’s also a way to promote your business or to pay tribute to a friend or loved one who has fought cancer.

Go to the Pixel Page on the 4tricia.com blog. Buy a block of pixels and upload your image or logo. You can even add a tagline and a link to your website. A 10 x 10 pixel square is $1. The most common selection is a 50 x 50 pixel square, about the size of an online avatar, and it’s yours for $25.

Tricia and her family have graciously offered to donate 25 percent of the proceeds to the Frozen Pea Fund. In fact, we have already received our first donation from them!

We want to thank Tricia and her family, and especially Todd, for including the Frozen Pea Fund. And we extend our thoughts and prayers for a quick recovery for Tricia.

How about you? Would you please support Tricia by leaving a comment for her on 4tricia.com and by purchasing a pixel? It’s a great cause, and an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of a family in our extended community.

Please spread the word about the pixel project on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. And feel free to blog about the effort on behalf of Tricia, or email the link to a friend. Thanks in advance for your help.

– Connie

The campaign, which actually lasts five days, is called My ooVoo Day. In lieu of compensating each of the participating hosts, ooVoo will make a contribution of $1,500; most have chosen to donate their fee to the Frozen Pea Fund.

This is a win-win-win-win situation. ooVoo will have several hundred people test-driving their service, readers get to connect with some of their favorite bloggers, who get increased exposure in the marketplace, and a worthy cause gets its first corporate donation.

In addition, Susan Reynolds and Connie Reece will be hosting their own video chat sessions on Sunday, February 10, on the topic From Connections to Community: How Online Relationships Enrich Our Lives.

Founder of Every Dot Connects, Connie is a communications specialist with three decades of experience as a writer, speaker and consultant. She is Executive Director of Social Media Club and helped establish the Frozen Pea Fund. Both Connie and Susan were networking online in the pre-Internet days and have honed their relationship-building skills through a variety of social media. In Boobs on Ice Susan shares openly about her cancer diagnosis and the role online community has come to play in her journey.

Each chat session can accommodate four people, and 18 slots were filled the first day. To register, go to My ooVoo Day, download the software (available for Mac users too–only at this link), and then sign up for an open seat.

Here’s a rundown of the times and topics Connie and Susan will be available to talk about:

Session 1 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. EST — Building Connections and Networking Online
(four 15-minute time slots available)
Topics: Finding and Friending; Your Profile Is Your Personal Brand; Cultivating Relationships

Session 2 4:00 to 4:30 p.m. EST — Taking it Face to Face: stories of meetups and tweetups (three 10-minute time slots)

Session 3 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. EST — When Connections Become a Community
(four 15-minute time slots)
Topics: How Online Communities Celebrate, Grieve; How to Talk to Someone About Cancer or Crisis; Give the Present of Your Presence

Immediately following this session, it’s strictly birthday chat with Susan — sign up for the party at the separate My ooVoo Day listing:

Update: The Birthday Party time slots are already filled! Check back later to see if we are able to add any additional times to wish Susan the happiest of birthdays.

Click the map to add your name.

Michael Allison (@michaelallison), a Canadian grad student pursing a master’s degree in communications and a part-time marketing assistant, recently presented the Frozen Pea Fund as a case study to a group of PR peers.

“Twitter acts as a sort of stream of consciousness between groups of asymmetrically reciprocal followers,” Michael said. “I think it can be argued that Twitter, or similar critically-massed application, is valuable and can convey meaning to communities that can affect real-world change.”

Forward Podcast, hosted by Paull Young (@paullyoung), with guests Susan Reynolds and Craig Colgan, writer of the Washington Post story featuring Susan.

The Social Mediasphere, hosted by Tris Hussey (@trishussey) and Jim Turner (@genuine), with guests Susan Reynolds and Connie Reece.