Candlelighters Childhood Cancer Support Group Dessert and Meal Online Auction ended Tuesday evening, raising $16,000 through food items donated and bid on by people across Manitoba, with the 97 highest bidders on 182 items.
Candlelighters board chair Naomi Fehr explained how this fundraiser came about.
"We love our food and our auction last year, our regular auction didn't go quite as well as we had wanted it to, it was still a huge success, but it raised a little less than what we had hoped. So, we thought we would do a meal, auction and dessert, and we thought I'd bring in an extra 3 to $5000. So, when it hit $16,000, it was pretty exciting in our household."
Since the COVID 19 pandemic, Candlelighters has held a Facebook online auction featuring a variety of donated prizes and items, often including food. This was the first time the group tried something new.
Fehr explained what this extra boost in funding means for the non-profit organization run solely by volunteers.
It helps us keep our programs running; we'd have an emergency meeting. And now that COVID is over, we're back to in person events, but we want to continue doing all the things that we started doing during COVID, like helping families with some finances, helping with funeral costs, sending hot meals up to the children's cancer ward, and having a food cart up there. Those are all hugely important things, and we realized that through all the messages that we've been getting from families. It would have broken our hearts if we would have had to cancel some of those programs, now with in person events happening again. So, we decided we needed to up our game a little. We did this fundraiser, and it was just a huge success, and we hope to continue it every year."
Each family receives a $500 gift card when their child is first diagnosed with cancer to help with gas and groceries, graduating cancer survivors receive money, and sometimes the money is used to help families with funeral costs.
Money also goes to support the annual Family Camp weekend, taking place this weekend.
"We host about 25 to 30 families for a whole weekend, and we have events planned and it gives families a chance to connect outside of a hospital setting. The kids can just relax and have fun and just be themselves and be surrounded by people who understand what they're going through. So, a lot of really, really great relationships come out of this weekend, and we find that it's very beneficial to us as well as the families.
Fehr said there was another part of the auction that surprised her a little.
"We had a lot of people donating to the auction this year whose names I haven't recognized as being part of the auction before. We're just astounded by the amount of support we're getting from people who don't really know us and aren't personally connected to families who have kids with cancer. I think it means a lot to me that they trust us with their money. Really that's what it is. They see the good we're doing, and people are bidding an unreal amount. We laughed about it a little, saying, 'How many bake sales would we have had to have in order to raise $16,000?' And we figured we probably would have to have one every week throughout the year. But to see people's hearts through this and just to see how willing people are to give, it's very touching."
Soups, meals, cookies, cakes and a variety of food items were put up for bid by some of the 619 members of the group totaling 182 items. Fehr said with the success of this fundraiser, people should expect it to happen again next year.