EDMONTON - An Edmonton-based charity that helps children in the African city of Nairobi has become the unintentional beneficiary of celebrity vanity.

Hip hop star Kanye West's plea for help with his alleged $53-million personal debt prompted the launch of the online campaign "Help Kenya, not Kanye."

It all started two weeks ago when the eccentric musician pleaded for financial help on Twitter.

West even asked Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to invest one billion dollars into his ideas, and suggested the money spent funding his music would be a better investment than opening "one school in Africa."

The next day West admitted he can afford the finer things in life.

The ridiculous requests prompted a (former) fan to launch "Help Kenya, Not Kanye." Gabriel Ferrer, a senior copywriter at a Miami advertising firm, made the scrolling site that encourages fans to donate their money to more worthy causes and links out to related charities.

The website suggests fans choose famine over fashion, saying the $700 one might spend on one of West's sweaters — an item in his high-priced line of clothing — could instead feed an entire school of 200 malnourished orphans and their 10 teachers for a month.

"My concept was to equate the value of things Kanye is selling to exactly what you can get for that total in Africa," Ferrer told AdWeek.

Instead of buying expensive footwear,

Instead of buying expensive footwear, the campaign asks people to buy books for students.

Edmonton-based charity One Child's Village was one of the charities listed on the website, alongside Habitat for Humanity, the African Wildlife Foundation, Save The Children, Kenya Help and several UNICEF programs.

The One Child's Village charity and its school helps children affected by HIV and AIDS.

Todd Lorentz, a director of One Child's Village, told 630 CHED he was completely surprised that his small organization, which operates out of his Edmonton home, ended up being listed on the website, but says he's happy to go along with it.

"Hopefully we can launch a lot of new projects and help tens of thousands more kids in the coming weeks and months," Lorentz told CHED.

For more information visit the crowdrise campaign site, and the One Child's Village site.

With files from  Kevin Robertson, 630 CHED, and The Canadian Press