As I mentioned, our fundraising event on Sunday night was a big success. I am so proud to have been part of the organizational team in support of such a worthy cause.
For this, our first annual Face to Face dinner and silent auction, we made somewhere in the region of $19,000+ dollars after expenses and that is how much we will be handing over to Sandra at Canadian Humanitarian. This money will be put to good use to help the kids in Ethiopia.
It's a bit of a shock still, since when we began planning we were sort of just worrying about breaking even. We also worried about ticket sales, since we didn't start planning and selling tickets until quite late in the year. We ended up sold out with people still asking us for tickets at the last minute.
The night was a busy one for those of us on the team and our wonderful volunteers. For this reason, I was not able to take any pictures. Well, I managed a couple but my camera was low on juice so I couldn't zoom, etc. I'm hoping to get some sent to me that I can post soon.
We had a group of local Ethiopian dancers perform prior to dinner - it was my first time seeing live ET dancing so I made a point to watch at least part of that. Man, were they fantastic! I tell you, if it were me doing all that shoulder shaking and popping I would have ended up in traction for a week.
During dinner, we kept the silent auction running, which was hilarious. It was so funny watching people pop up out of their seats to go check on their bid items. Some people were very into it, watching their competitors carefully! I had a great group at my table. I FINALLY got to meet Dianne & Chris, who were so much fun. It felt like I had met them before, and I guess in a way I had through blogging & email. My good friend Gena was with us - another single PAP. My hairstylist, Maxine, was there with her husband Steve and their friends Rena & Sascha. And my Mom, who also volunteered, was by my side.
I was also able to meet some other people for the first time, including people I've only 'met' on the message board. And of course, there was lots of catching up with the usual suspects, including Brigitte, Gina, Mareliese, Mary, and Sherry & Darren (who just got a referral for 3 more kids - they already have 2!), to mention just a few.
After closing the auction so the volunteers could pack up the items and notify the winners, Wendy and Kerry, our committee co-chairs came up to the podium. Wendy gave a short speech to introduce our keynote speaker, Melissa Fay Greene.
You know, I had expected to be all weepy and everything during her speech, but instead I was wiping tears of laughter from my eyes. Melissa is as engaging a speaker as she is a writer. I will write a separate post about her book and the breakfast. I DO have great photos from Monday that I'll post just as soon as I find my camera download cable.
After Melissa's speech, I had to go 'back stage' to help pack up the auction items so sadly I totally missed Dr. Richard Northcott, who was our second speaker. Dr. Northcott is the founder of Canadian Humanitarian. He presented a video and I am told he gave a touching and inspirational speech about the cause and why we were all there for the night.
Thanks again to everyone who came out, who donated to CH, who bid on items, our sponsors, and our volunteers - especially my Mom!
I had such a great time working with the organizational team: Wendy, Kerry, Anthea, Eileen, Suzanna, Janice, Bryce, and Ben. It was my first time participating in a fundraiser on this scale and I am looking forward to doing it all again next year!
Also, big congratulations to Lisa and Julie who held their very successful East coast fundraiser on the Saturday night. Great job! (they have pics posted).
