Auction Wrap Up & Gushing

Hello all!

To start off with THANK YOU again, so much to everyone who participated in the 2nd Annual Writers For Hope Auction. It will definitely be back again next April.

As I mentioned in last week's results post, all outstanding bids are due in by TODAY. Tomorrow, any items whose bids still haven't been donated will be offered to the second highest bidder. If you still have a bid to donate, you can go HERE to do so. You can also go there even if you didn't participate in the auction, but are interested in donating to RAINN in honor of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.

Anything I write about this event would be remiss if I didn't mention how consistently people overwhelm me - in the best way. Reading or watching the news - or the comment section on any such news items - it's easy to see the bad in the world. And it's easy to feel like the heaviness of that bad is crushing all the good.

Now, I can certainly admit that the bad is out there. If it wasn't, organizations like RAINN wouldn't need to exist. So, I don't begrudge new outlets for informing us of it - I do, however, wish they would broaden their focus, stop showing the world solely through the lens of everything wrong with it. The bad is real and serious, yes - but it is not eclipsing the good.

Whenever I do these sorts of events, whether it's the live or virtual auctions, there is nothing quite as anxiety provoking as the time I spend asking for donations. Asking people to give of their time or money or goods is awkward. Explaining to them why I would like them to give these things is intimidating. People get asked to do things a lot. Donor fatigue and burn out is something I expect. Even though someone may have donated last year, who knows what could have gone on in the last 12 months of their lives. Maybe something really big, maybe a whole lot of little things, maybe just enough to wish that people would stop emailing them and asking for more.

Every time I hit send on a request, there is that tiny second of doubt.

Well, the next time I feel that, I'm just going to reread all the responses I received for this year's donation requests. Here I was, asking a bunch of people to make their already busy lives busier, and the response - across the board - was excitement over the event and gratitude to be included. Those who couldn't make it fit in their schedule this year immediately found someone they knew who could. People who heard about the event elsewhere contacted me asking if they could give something to help.

The support on social media the day of the auction was amazing. People boosting the signal both about the event and the important reason it was occurring. I received message after message from people who just wanted me to know how excited they were to let other folks know about what was happening here. And then in almost every email from the winning bidders, people expressed not only excitement over their awesome prizes, but how happy they were to feel like they had been a part of something that was doing good.

All that bad stuff is big and it's flashy and it's what's going to make headlines. And it's important that we are aware of that darker side of the world, that we don't pretend it doesn't exist. But it's equally important that we don't let ourselves get so mired in that darkness that we forget the tremendous amount of light. Because if we lose sight of that, we also lose the strength we need to combat all the bad. We lose the reason we're fighting back in the first place.

So, again, thank you all from the very bottom of my heart. Thank you for being an army of every day, ordinary, beautiful goodness. Thank you for reminding me why I love this world and why it will forever be worth fighting for.

You make me feel like this...

...like, all the time