You are all incredible!
At 4.15 pm, Emily from South Community Birth Program (SCBP) arrived. I was still fine-tuning the organization with the team. At 5pm, only 6 people had showed up. I had already anticipated that the guests would be late so I used this time to make sure everyone was on top of his role. 5.35 pm, the room started to fill up and by 6 pm, it was completely filled. I proceed to the front and announced that we would start the official program for the Yellow Heart Event and Fundraiser 5 mn later.
I quickly snicked into the kitchen of my studio to check on my friend Kevin and make sure everything was cooking as planned. He made me taste one of his famous meet balls on a bed of tomato sauce. They were divine. I proceed back to the room for my 5 mn welcome speech. I was thrilled to see so many faces including some of the generous donors (who helped us with the items for the raffle and the auction) and Dr Joan from South Community Birth Program (which was the first doctor we met at SCBP). 6.10 pm, I asked for volunteers to help me unveiled my artworks which were all covered with black cloths. 14 guests were either volunteers or voluntold :). At the countdown of 3, 2, 1, 0, the artworks were unveiled and the photo exhibition officially started. For 20 mn, everyone had a chance to have a bite, a drink and enjoy the rich and stunning colors on the giant metal prints. Most of them were 48 x 32 in.
Shortly after, we started the fundraiser by announcing how much we made so far with the raffle tickets: a small $137. I reminded the guests of the fundraiser goal $2,000 and the amazing opportunity we had to support the amazing work SCBP is doing. I, then presented, my photo book and the first purchase was made. Awesome!
We left 20 mn for people to discover the books, purchase them and we quickly jumped into the auction. My friend Jason, was in action. The auction started really shy after a few minutes, the bids were coming like crazy and the fun lasted for around 30 mn. I was really stunned about how generous everyone was. Once we were done, we announced a small break and my team and I went to do some math. To our surprise, we had exceeded our goal. I picked the giant 40 x 20 inches donation cheque, wrote the amount and headed back to the main area. We couldn't wait to announce how much everyone gave. I arrived in the room with a big smile on my face, proceeded to the front and called up Dr Kiran. I thanked everyone again for being generous and presented the cheque. We had raised $2,402. Everyone was cheering and we all thanked each other.
Thanks again to all our generous donors: Merchant of Dream, Country Beads Vancouver, Much and Little, The Flower Factory, The Granville Island Toy Company, The Lip Lounge, Devil May Wear, Beansprouts, The Archetype, Dilly Dally, The Boardroom, Safe Beginnings, Room for 2, Dunbar Community Center, Francis Penny Beauty Products, Yinstill Reproductive Wellness, Vivo Gelato, Dancing Stars and High Note Studio, Jan Kasparec (visual artist), Goldwell Products, Margitta's Flowers, Espana Restaurant, Mehdi Falaki (who drove me to the US border to pick up the photo books and the prints), Keltic Indy Fusion, Naoufal Moudan from NaoDesign (who was the Yellow Heart Event Photographer but who is also an amazing web designer), Pete's Meat and Kevin Monych and Marc (the chefs who donated their time to cook us these delicacies including their famous meet balls (I apologize if I forgot some of you).
Thanks to everyone for being so kind and generous. Thanks to all my friends for being true friends, for your support and for helping making this event the success it was. Thanks to my wife and my son for your unconditional love and support. Thanks to South Community Birth Program for the awesome work they are doing and I wish them to never stop making such positive impacts in the community. (head back to our Facebook page for more images of the Yellow Heart Event)
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