TEAM TMR’s Facebook Auction: It All Started with an Idea, a Couple of Books, and Some Essential Oils . . .

On August 8, 2015, a momentous event had its humble start: TEAM TMR – TMR’s nonprofit organization dedicated to providing grants to families with children with disabilities – started a week-long Facebook online auction to raise money for their grant program. Frankie was coordinating. She had run one before based on eBay, but this time she had what turned out to be the brilliant idea of running it from Facebook. Frankie set up the page, invited a bunch of people, and posted some 20 or so items to auction. She was hoping for donations totaling 100 or so items with a goal of raising about $2,000.

I got inspired and decided to go through my bookshelf and supplement hoard . . . err . . . stash to see if I had anything unopened that I could post. I then started to reach out to a few people in the autism community to see if they could donate anything to the cause.

What happened next was something no one could have dreamed of. Donations came streaming in. More and more people joined the group and were bidding on the growing list of items. They tagged even more people and challenged them to donate even more items: Supplements. Essential oil kits. Homeopathy sessions. Gift cards. Autographed books. IonCleanse machines. Jewelry. Artwork. Energy work. HBOT dives. GFCFSF baked goods. Gala tickets with Jenny and Donnie. The list seemed endless. The energy was incredible: exciting, fun, joyful, and generous, so generous. And, when the week was over and all was said and done, we had accumulated over 500 items and raised over $22,000 for our grant program.

Yes, you read that right. TWENTY-TWO THOUSAND BUCKS!!!!

Floored. Humbled. Proud. So many emotions.

For me, it wasn’t so much about the money raised (don’t get me wrong, that was AWESOME!) but about the flood of positive and exciting energy that was generated in the community. Even people who may not have been able to write a check as they’re just getting by themselves had a book . . . or an unopened oil . . . something, anything they could give to help. New friends were made. Laughs were shared. New ideas for paths to take were sparked.

TEAM TMR volunteers spent countless hours over the next two weeks contacting winners and coordinating payments and shipping. A huge task. So happy we have a spreadsheet queen in our own JuicyFruit. Her sick Excel skills made this so much easier to handle. 😉

It was the beauty of the collective effort that made this such a huge success. It couldn’t have been done without the many donors and bidders. ONE MILLION THANK YOUS to each and every person that offered items and services to auction off. I am in awe of what great things we can do when we come together out of pure love and the desire to help others in need. You all made me remember that most people are inherently good. Thank you for that.

We are just tying up some loose ends so we can put this auction to bed and recover a bit . . . But not for long! Time to start planning the next event for sometime in February 2016. I hope to see you all there and can’t wait to see what we can raise to help more families.

Love you people <3,

~Poppy

The pictures are just a small sampling of the kinds of things that were available in the auction.

For more by Poppy, click here.