Pitch for a Benefit Auction

Amy over at Diary of a Quilter posted about a good cause the other day: an auction to help her friend Jenny pay for medical bills of her leukemia treatment.

I read the post and thought, well, that sucks, but I don't know the person, have no connection to her and many people need help in the world, where does it stop? I also do quite a bit of charity work already, foster children in Africa and South America, Global Parent with UNICEF, fundraising for Doctor's Without Borders and occasional donations to WWF - it adds up.

For some reason, I clicked on the link to Jenny's blog and started reading the recent posts. Then I went to the archive and looked at the first posts. I discovered that this blog is not an "illness only" blog - Jenny started it years before she was diagnosed with leukemia. That was the first thing stopping me in my tracks (in addition to her being a young woman like me) - cancer can happen to anyone, anytime. Reading Jenny's regular posts about her plans, travel dreams, sluggish progress with her PhD thesis and having fun with friends made me think that it's not much different from my personal blog for friends and family. What if starting tomorrow, there'll be a 5 month posting break on my blog and the next blog talks about visitation rules at the hospital and how the first round of chemo is going? That is a scary and sobering thought. One thing that really struck me was Jenny's attitude: she's always smiling, no matter how tired and sick she looks - I know, I know, blogs are edited to keep the negative stuff out, but something shines through, a tough spirit that is fighting to the last. Gosh, I don't even know this person... I guess I'm trusting my gut feeling.


I browsed/read through almost all of Jenny's blog and by the end of it felt compelled to contribute. So I'm donating my pink zigzag baby quilt to the auction which will be held on Feb 14-15 (very soon!). People can still donate items until Feb 12th (Saturday!) and it can be anything as long as you're willing to ship it to the winner (you can restrict the destinations).

There are very interesting prizes up on the auction blog (no pun intended, though it's a neat one - auction block/blog) already, including photo sessions, quilts, food, jewelry, knitted hats and a cool 4 person trip to a hot destination...

If this cause interests you/moves you, hop on over to the auction blog, donate an item or bid or not, whatever you feel like! Hopefully, should I ever be in such a situation, I will have friends to help me out, as well...