Michael Moore used his blog to raise over $50,000 for Park51, the mosque and community center near Ground Zero. View Full Caption Jason Kempin/Getty Images

By Julie Shapiro

DNAinfo Reporter/Producer

LOWER MANHATTAN — Michael Moore says he has raised over $50,000 for Park51, the mosque and community center near Ground Zero.



Moore, a liberal director and author, wrote a blog post on Saturday, the ninth anniversary of 9/11, urging supporters of the Park51 project to donate whatever they could. He promised to match up to $10,000.

Less than 48 hours later, five times that amount had poured in as thousands of people from around the country heeded Moore’s call, he said.

"Times are tough economically, and supporting our Muslim brothers and sisters is not a popular thing to do right now," Moore said on his blog Monday morning. "I am truly touched by your generosity — and people around the world will know that you, too, represent an America they rarely get to see."

In his original blog post two days earlier, Moore said he was hesitant to wade into the "manufactured controversy" surrounding the project, but he was angry about the bigotry he saw in those who oppose it.

"Blaming a whole group for the actions of just one of that group is anti-American," Moore wrote. "Timothy McVeigh was Catholic. Should Oklahoma City prohibit the building of a Catholic Church near the site of the former federal building that McVeigh blew up?"

A Park51 spokesman did not immediately comment on the donations, but the organization thanked Moore via Twitter on Monday.



The 13-story center, which includes a swimming pool and a theater in addition to a prayer space, will cost $100 million to build. The organizers started fundraising after a service last month and netted $10,000 in just a few minutes.

In his blog post on Monday, Moore published dozens of the e-mails he received from people who donated money, including those who said they could only contribute $5 because they were out of work or their house was in foreclosure. One contributor, named Trent Woodruff, even said he usually found Moore "offensive," but in this case his opinion was "spot-on."

"I am much more than a bit of an idealist still, and in my view, it is precisely for things like this mosque that I served," wrote Woodruff, who said he was a retired soldier. "I don't mind the uproar over it, because that is those folks' right to free speech also, but I certainly think it should be built."