The Threads That Bind Us

This evening we went to our first ever charity auction event, hostessed by Barrita of Cotton's Chocolates (a place where we are not infrequent customers, she makes the best selection of fine diabetic chocolates in town!) who stopped in to the store to give us a personal invite a few days ago.  She runs a foundation called "Sweet Smiles" that fundraises for three orphanages in Mexico, one of which is run by a lady recently diagnosed with cancer, and she set up an event at MoeJoe's Nightclub (who donated the use of their venue) with reasonably priced tickets, and a silent auction, door prizes, and a 50/50 draw to raise money for her charity.

Barrita was this year's Woman of the Year, and for those of you who don't know her, she does a lot of great works in our community.  We felt that having been invited by her personally, and feeling a need to support her very personal cause, we would go (oh yes, and the chocolate covered strawberries she promised didn't hurt either!)

We didn't have a lot of money, but we brought some gift certificates for Reiki and Tarot readings to contribute to the door prizes, and two prints.  Some of you might recognize them; they were point-drawings of two moose, a bull in one picture and a cow and calves in the other.  They've been in the shop forever and honestly, I've had them priced at $10 a piece for months and they wouldn't sell for love or money.  But what many of you probably don't realize is that these were not just crappy thrift items; these were limited edition prints, Number One in a series of 500, by a Kamloops artist named Dan Forster (name sound familiar?  Yeah, he's actually reasonably famous!)  And for months, we couldn't have paid someone to take these pictures away!

Well, Barrita was delighted by our donations, and she immediately added the certificates to the door prizes and set out the prints for the auction.

I am delighed to report that when the auction closed, those prints sold for $75 a piece, and all of that goes to a good cause!  I guess they were just waiting for this event.  Sometimes, things won't sell in a metaphysical store because they are meant for a specific person or purpose, and this, I believe, was one of those times.  Sometimes, though, I guess you don't realize what you've got until it's gone.

On a happy personal note, I also made a bid on a personal tax return offered by Padget (who bill themselves as "The Small Business Pros," that was offered as part of a package with a travel kit from Hyundai.  My winning bid was $45 (a steal for a tax return anyway!) and the travel kit turned out to contain jumper cables, an emergency roadside kit, a cooler bag to keep it all in, flashlight, and a pair of quality binoculars!  Well, it was the tax return I was after (couldn't make a frivolous bid on any of the jewellery or the Snow White limited edition collectable Barbie or anything,) but the other stuff turned out to be a nice and useful bonus!

Sometimes, when you put good things out there, they really do come back to you, and often in happy ways you don't expect.

It was a good evening and a good cause, and our little business was happy to do its little part.  Blessed be!