The fundraiser for Friends of Pine Ridge--Holy Moses, what a time!

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A portion of the crowd at the oral auction segment of the Friends
of Pine Ridge fundraiser -- everyone excited about bidding and
having a good time (image courtesy of September Blaisdale)

The fundraiser held this last Sunday, October 18, was a huge success in every sense of the word. Vendors and content makers contributed plenty of great items, from firearms, to elegant ladies' dresses, to useful furnishings, to houses--even an authentic Norman keep--to be auctioned off. A good crowd turned out and the bidding was enthusiastic. Like many of those in attendance, I got the "auction fever" and found myself bidding like a looney, and having a great time.

And the results far exceeded anyone's expectations.

Clay Kungler and September Blaisdale, the folks who organized this event to benefit the Friends of Pine Ridge (the Oglala Sioux reservation), told me that their original goal was a modest 20,000 to 25,000 linden. Man were they low-balling it. In the course of the afternoon, 74,898 Linden came in from the event--additional donations were then made to bring the total raised up to an even 80,000 Linden (approximately 307.00 USD).

Is that something or what?

The following folks donated items to be auctioned:

Caed Aldwych
Renate Marchionne
Marrant Vita
Diogenes Kuhr
Renate Marchionne
Master Glendevon
Astolat Dufaux
Jasper Kiergarten
Rod Eun:
Skeeter Sabra:
Fatmina U
Reghan Straaf
Addison Leigh
Ernst Osterham
Rynn Dryke
Viv Trafalgar

This list is from Clay's follow-up post on the Deadwood forum, which may be seen here: http://www.theroadtodeadwood.com/forum/index.php?topic=3448.0

Items valued at less than 500L were placed in a silent auction in which bidders could submit an offer all afternoon. The higher-value goods went into an oral auction, in which Clay served admirably as auctioneer, despite his PC dying a horrible death right in the middle of the proceedings (he switched over to his laptop in rapid fashion). Even with the spirited bidding, the folks who attended got some pretty decent bargains.

September is now in the process of buying useful items from a 'shopping list" provided by the Friends of Pine Ridge. Rather than sending the money and having them trying to find a volunteer to go make the purchases (a major commitment as there are no stores terribly close to the reservation), September is hunting for bargains to make the funds go even further--her priority is gloves, boots and hats in children's sizes, as many of the kids on the res have to walk to school, and you can imagine what that is like in a South Dakota winter. The Friends of Pine Ridge organziaton will take care of distributing these items to the folks who need them.

Yeah, I know...it's gonna take us an awful long time to save the world, doing it 80,000 lindens at a time. But it beats the hell outta doing nothin'.

Everyone who who made this happen from organizers to donors to bidders deserves some real credit for thinking outside of themselves in this.

And you know what else?

It proves something that I've known all along. I give my pard Clay a hard time about his in-world persona, which I have described on a number of occasions as being that of "an asshole of epic proportions." You gotta rp with Clay sometime to really appreciate that concept. And mind you, Clay is inordinately proud of his rep. The truth, however, is that he is truly one of the good guys, one of the most decent people I have met in-world. But we'll just keep that as a little secret between us, ok?

At right, Clay Kungler, saloon keeper, politician, gunfighter, headhunter and auctioneer (image courtesy of Neil Streeter)

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