More than 13,000 online strangers raised over $300,000 for the bullied bus monitor Karen Klein, who was verbally abused by middle schoolers in a shocking video that went viral Tuesday.

The story of the bullied, poorly-paid, hearing-impaired grandmother of eight captured the hearts and minds (and pocketbooks) of thousands of Americans. But perhaps more important, the story typifies how democratized media and crowd-sourcing can not only keep us informed of injustice, but also can make a difference.

Ben Doernberg created a Storify that chronicled the conversations around the story on social media and featured calls to action to raise money for Karen.

One of those calls to action came from Redditor Max Sidorov who posted about the video on Reddit and created a donation page on Indiegogo to fund a vacation for Karen.

Both Ben and Burt Herman, co-founder of Storify joined us for a live discussion about the profound role social media played in this developing story.