No, it's NOT all about the Benjamins!

It began as a fundraiser. An effort by a couple dozen people to help a family who is stricken with grief after losing a patriarch and its oldest son — all within a matter of months. But it ended up being more than that. Sure, it raised significant money - at least two or three times what we envisioned. But our benefit the other night raised more than money.  As one local rancher said to me, “This has become about more than just money.  Look how people have come together.” 

Yes, they — people from Aberdeen to Jamestown to Buchanan to Pingree to Carrington — certainly did come together! The KC Hall has seldom been filled to such capacity. Generosity lined the outside walls of the main hall via baskets and baskets designed with artists’ hands.  Items that appealed to men, women and children with every kind of taste. Tools and equipment for any shop or garage.  Home decor for any style. Toys, books and blankets for kids. Platters beautifully stacked with cookies (thanks, Chris Neys!) so festive they brought a sugar rush (and fetched up to $200 a plate!). That was the Silent Auction.  The LIVE Auction could be a story in itself.  A posse of professionals couldn’t have done a better job of gathering donations -- and those they targeted could simply not have been more generous. Donations to the LIVE auction were something to behold:  gift certificates that offered services as diverse as fertilizer spreading for 1,000 acres to Minnesota and North Dakota vacation packages, to quarter beefs, to 20 bags of bean seeds to 10 emsella treatments and one Party Bus. Two 7’ Christmas trees decorated with pull tabs. Heavy duty stuff, too—a snow blower, a Bobcat generator, grills, televisions, e-bikes, even Sioux hockey tickets and a Brett Favre jersey! 

As impressive as those donations are, they weren’t magical until bidders bravely bid.  As hard as we worked to reflect a real retail value of all items on both the silent and LIVE auctions, bidders often didn’t meet those values—they often SURPASSED them. As awe-inspiring as the bids for the big-buck items were, the darlings of the ball were lefsa by the dozen and porch pots times ten.  It tickled me that all of Susan Fredrickson’s festive evergreen porch pots, which she humbly thought should bring $20 to $30 apiece, actually sold for $175 each.  And I loved that Roger Nenow was able to auction off lefsa made by Wendall and Judy Perleberg.  Bags containing a dozen lefsa each sold for $150, and when the Perlebergs said they would take orders for more at that price (also to be donated), bidders complied.

Cookies, porch pots and lefsa.  These weren't just donations, they were labors of love. The Stutsman County version of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Given — as ALL donations to the benefit were — with deference for a family that has experienced unthinkable tragedy.  If there has ever been a time that has caused me to swell with pride in my community, it is this.  Right here. Right now. The people of our community needed this.  We needed to lift up the Neys Family.  Because, in doing so, we lifted ourselves.  “The more you help people find their light, the brighter you both will shine.”