By Stuart Benson
A charity auction organized by Wakefield resident Alannah Ward and supported by the Wakefield Hospital Boutique raised $7,142 to support the Des Collines Health Foundation, a non-profit organization supporting healthcare in the Hills.
Ward, whose mother volunteers at the Boutique when it isn’t closed due to COVID-19 restrictions, decided to organize the auction to help raise funds for the Foundation since the Foundation wouldn’t be receiving any of the money it usually gets from the Boutique's profits.
Coordinating with Pamela Scobie, chair of the Boutique Sante Committee that operates the Wakefield Boutique, Ward created a Facebook group on June 2, complete with rules for bidding, and posted over 250 individual photos of items that had been donated by local businesses or from the boutiques own stock, to allow for participants to bid in the comments section of the post.
“Alannah has really spearheaded the whole thing and I feel like I've just been along for the ride,” Scobie said, praising Ward for her initiative. “I'm so impressed with her; she deserves all the praise.”
Ward said that many winning bidders ended up giving more than they had originally bid, or sometimes just reached out a week later to make another cash donation.
“If a winning bid was $25, people would just give me $30 a lot of the time,” Ward explained. “It was really great.”
“We were overwhelmed with the response, and I think people were enjoying the bidding,” Scobie added. “It felt like we were doing something positive during a lot of negativity.”