Annual auction results

[Lightningbolt]

Today our camp (a program for at-risk youth) had it's annual "Jammin' Wingfest" fundraiser where there was plenty of good food, great bluegrass music, and a fantastic auction. All of the proceeds will go toward funding new tables for the dining hall and various construction projects in the boys campsites.

The auction included many items donated by the local community from a private plane ride to the beach for lunch to woodcarvings by myself.
I'm proud to report that my 10 woodcarvings brought in over $800.00 dollars this year and it was quite exciting to see the bidding heat up during the last hour!

Description of the attached pictures:

1. This is a small display of our program.
2. This gentleman and retired Vietnam U.S. Marine veteran was the recipient of the walking stick that I posted in this link: "Semper Fi" Marine Corps Walking Stick One of our family workers bought it from me for his dad's birthday earlier in the year and I've never seen him without it! He recently took it to a big Vietnam veterans get-together in D.C. and said that he could have sold a hundred of them for me! That is one proud Marine, let me tell you!
3. He said that while in D.C. he attached this band to the walking stick and the black beads pay respect to all of the men who didn't return from Vietnam.
4. A youngster admiring the garden chair which I posted earlier at the following link: "Carved Garden Chair" - WCI issue # 38 This chair created some of the fiercest bidding today and ended up going for $125.00.
5. The big log woodspirit that I posted earlier here: WIP- Woodspirit log This was also a very popular item with everyone and I swear the bidding heated up dramatically when I placed this fern plant on it's head during the last half hour! It ended up going for $260.00 !

I'll post the other pictures in a message below since 5 is the limit.

[Lightningbolt]

The remaining pictures mainly show folks busy placing their bids on all the great stuff. If you're interested, that's me in picture #8 trying hard to up the bidding on my bears which also appeared earlier in the links below:
Small white pine bear and WIP- Cherry Baby Bear The cherry bear went for $75.00 and the "cute" pine bear went for $65.00. The tree troll that I posted a couple days ago here: Tree Troll in river birch... another happy face! ended up going for a whoopin' $55.00 !

All in all it was a grand day and a great success for our therapeutic wilderness camping program and the boys will greatly benefit. Can't wait till next year!

[Joy]

Good for you....way to give! I have to admit that the fern was a great touch on the the wood spirit....softened and naturalized it.

[Tom-H]

Dave,

It's nice to see someone so dedicated to thier work, and maybe nicer to see how much others appriciate it too. A great use of your talent...Tom H

[Thor]

Congratulations on a successful auction. Your donations really stand out in the pictures. Fun to see it all. It looks like everyone enjoyed your work.
Thor

[Jim OH]

Dave,
Thanks for sharing your talent in such a positive way and improving the lives of others. Your work looks great.
Jim OH

[Lightningbolt]

Thanks for all the warm comments and taking a moment to enjoy the day as best as I could present it!

As an update the lady who is pictured below was in contact with me today. Although she didn't bid on the big woodspirit log she did end up with the highest bid on three other carvings including the woodspirit garden chair. First, she offered to donate some pine logs to us from her farm if I wanted to come and take a look. Secondly, it was no secret that Linda absolutely fell in love with the log woodspirit... so much so that I asked if I could take her picture standing beside it at the auction.

She wanted to know if I'd be interested in carving another one for her and she offered to pay the $260.00 top bid that the other one brought. I accepted so as soon as I get started I'll have to post some more pictures. That brings up the grand total of bids to $1,060.00... Wow! The entire amout raised for the event was in the $6,000.00 range so carving played a big overall role. I also got 3 new contacts for people who wanted to donate logs! Wow, again! Just gotta love that carvin' !!!