Charity collects cash for kids

On a cold, blustery day last weekend, residents of Medical Lake packed into the warmth of Picnic Pines Restaurant, 9212 S. Silver Lake Road, Medical Lake, to win raffle items, bid on auction items and have fun for a good cause.

The Friends for Children in Medical Lake have been collecting funds to help local children – ones who might not be able to afford a pair of shoes to play sports, a tennis racket to join the tennis team or be able to have presents under the tree at Christmas. They have also given away Thanksgiving baskets and are getting ready to distribute 16 or 17 Christmas dinner baskets.

“It’s for the kids,” auctioneer Mark Hodgson reminded the crowd to up the bid on a quilt sewn by the women at Pine Lodge. The quilt sold for $135.

The organization is made up of volunteers, so there is no overhead. Everything they collect goes to the children of the community, said Howard Jorgenson, a city councilmember and organization volunteer.

The group sold exactly 5,000 raffle tickets for $1. The 125 raffle items Saturday included mixing bowls, hair stylers, cutting boards, a power paint roller and hand-carved toy cars and trucks.

The big auction items of the day were two round-trip tickets to anywhere Southwest Airline flies, a night at the Doubletree which included a $100 gift certificate to Spencer’s, and a $250 gas card.

The crowd was having a great time, enjoying food and the company of their neighbors, while heckling Hodgson. When he held up a bottle of wine to auction, someone in the crowd shouted, “Is it a screw top?” The joke didn’t hurt the price of the wine, which was sold to Mayor Pro Tem Brenda Redell, filling in for the mayor, who couldn’t make it last weekend.

“This is the greatest charity we have in town,” Redell said. “We couldn’t ask for a better support group.”

Linda Smith has been to five of these auctions and is a volunteer with Friends for Children as well. She bought 50 tickets and during a break in the bidding action, she said she hadn’t won anything yet.

“Even if I don’t, that’s OK,” she said.

Smith said the day after the raffle, she and several other volunteers were heading to Wal-Mart to buy toys for about 60 children.

“We get to spend $3,500 on the kids to make it a really nice holiday,” Smith said.

Jorgenson said the approximately 35-member group meets on the second Saturday of every month at 9:45 a.m. at the Masonic Lodge. The auction held Saturday is only one of the several fundraisers they have throughout the year, including the softball tournament on Founder’s Day in June and a golf tournament.