“What would you do if I dm’ed you?” tweeted philanthropist Bill Pulte on June 12.

By then, the coronavirus pandemic had been ravaging the United States for three months. The previous day, the Department of Labor had announced that more than one in five people in the American workforce were either receiving unemployment insurance or had applied for it. Earlier that week, the Census Bureau had reported that fourteen million American children were not getting enough to eat.

“I’d be forever grateful considering my current condition,” replied a woman in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.