I received a nice summary of our recent “To Haiti with Love” benefit held on Thursday, February 18th, 2010 – from Shennon O’Donnell, who was the sparkplug and organizer who really made it all happen.
The day started out with 15 different dining establishments coming together to donate 10% of their sales to Doctors without Borders, the relief organization chosen for the event. Then later in the evening there was a concert, raffle and silent auction held at The Mystic Theatre. Petaluma Pete even came down to entertain folks as they arrived, and donate his tips generated that evening to the cause as well.
Shennon and Ken O’Donnell send out big thank you to everyone that came out in support. It turned out to be not only a great community bonding day filled with great food and music, but also a profitable event that raised over $9,000 for Doctors without Borders.
Shennon reports “We raised $1,520 in raffle tickets, $2,000 in donations at the door (of The Mystic concert), $2,570 silent auction, $2,850 in restaurant donations, and the remainder in various other generous souls. Due to an un-expected flood of generous people coming out of the wood-works on the day of the event we were a bit overwhelmed with the amount of great donations for the raffle and silent auction. Had we been given a bit more prepared for this we would have been selling raffle tickets in advance and probably made a lot more off it (sorry to not have specific names mentioned but there are just too many kind souls to mention everyone). ”
“A huge thanks to all those donors to the event, the musicians that came to share their time and talent, the restaurants that donated 10% of their sales, the Mystic for the use of the space as well as the staff that donated their time, and all the people that came out to support the event. In a time when money is tight and life is a bit harder for everyone, it is a great thing to see people come together, donate a bit of their hard earned money, dine and dance… and as a community, make a conscious effort to do something nice for people in need.”
