Silent auction

As my regular blog followers may know, my very good friend Emily is battling Non-Hodgkin's Leukemia and she needs stem cells for a stem cell transplant in order to suvive long enough to see her son grow up to be a man. A friend of Emilys hosted a silent auction which I attended tonight. I've never been to a proper auction of any kind, let alone a silent one, and so I didn't really know what to expect; but my post today will shed some light about what they are and why we should ALL GO if there is a fundraiser silent auction being held. 

So basically, items up for auction were displayed around the house. The host was very good to categorise all of the items on separate tables. There were tables for women's jewelery, kids toys, books, DVDs, various gift vouchers, PC games, children's clothes, ceramic and glassware and just about anything else you can think of. Each item was placed on a piece of paper on which we wrote our name and our bidding price. There were no starting prices, so that was left up to the person placing the bid. By the end of the night, if you had the highest bid on the piece of paper, then you walked home with the item. 

But wait there was more. There were raffles for bottles of champagne (Moet, guys. The good stuff) and other gift prizes. There were also items for sale that you didn't have to bid for. There was great food, drinks and music and it was so great mingling with everyone there. 

It was such a fun night! and best of all, we raised $1644.88 for Emily to help cover some of the costs of treatment and to go towards their 5 year-old son's schooling.

I wish more people had been there tonight. I think that perhaps the numbers of people weren't so high because they didn't know how great silent auctions can be; I for one am so glad that I went. Next time, I'm going to spread the word to everyone I know; even those who don't know Emily because it's something that everyone can enjoy. 

What really warmed my heart tonight were that some people came who didn't even know Emily but they brought items to auction off and helped with running the night so that it all went smoothly (which it did!). Their hearts are gold. In fact, everyone who was there had hearts of gold. And when you're in a room full of people like this, you can't help but feel like the whole world is good.

 

This is a haul that I walked away with :) I won that fancy Margaret River wine with a bid price of only $10!!