When I reached out to Direct Supply, my previous employer, for help in raising money to help Ethan and Alex get their service dog this month, my good friend Robin suggested we hold a bake sale combined with a silent auction. Direct Supply would donate the space and access to their roughly 900 employees, and friends from the Marketing department would bake items and donate goods/services.
I’d never helped with a bake sale before, but this has been a month of historic firsts in my life, so I figured I’d give it a shot. I offered up my time to do whatever was needed, but Robin said that all I had to do was come up with some items to bid on in the silent auction, and they would do the rest.
So I talked to a few of my contacts both local and national, and they gave me some good stuff to auction off. Most notable was First Edge Solutions, a local print and marketing communications company, who provided some courtside tickets to an upcoming Milwaukee Bucks game, as well as two full rows of seats! Those big-ticket items accounted for almost a third of the total amount raised, so I want to say a big thank-you to them. Plus, I found out that I went to high school with Bobby Kraft, their CEO! I think we were even in the same class, actually. Cool how that works, especially since our high school motto at Marquette was “Men for Others.” Good stuff.
When I arrived at Direct Supply, I found everything all set up and lookin’ good already – I didn’t even have to do anything! Robin had organized it all with the help of Jen, Megan, Anita and Krisi, so all I did was shoot a quick video and plop down in the meet-n-greet chair. :)
Over the next few hours I got to hang out with some people that I absolutely love, and see a lot of old friends and co-workers. All in all it was a great time, a lot of fun, and people were so very generous. One woman came in and told us that she had taken up a collection from her department, and though they didn’t want to buy anything, they wanted to make a substantial donation. There were so many cool examples of caring, connected people.
I’d like to thank Bob Klein and Direct Supply for being a part of the Love Drop this month, and for bringing us around $1,700 closer to our $13,000 goal to provide a service dog for Ethan and Alex.
Um, did you catch that? $1,700! From a (mostly) bake sale! You all rock, seriously. Much love!
