Would You Put Your Art Up For Auction to Help a Grieving Son Get Home for His Chamorro Mom's Funeral?
Have you ever felt with all your heart and soul like you needed to be somewhere for a certain event, like there's no way in hell you could possibly miss it? As if some cosmic forces were calling you to be there? "Where there's a will, there's a way."
This past Saturday morning, I received news that my Chamorro mom had passed away. You can read more about that and our relationship here. She died on Guam but her body is being flown to Saipan for the funeral. I have not been home to Saipan since I left over 10 years ago, though I've always meant to visit over the years.
Before I continue with this, I just wanted to take the time to say that in light of this recent tragedy in my life, the true human heart of the Steemit community has really been put on display for me, as the enormous outpouring of support and love I have received has truly been more than anything I could have ever expected. I truly, truly appreciate you all for all your kind words and for your donations to the cause. Words cannot possibly express the true scope and depth of the gratitude I feel for you all right now. THANK YOU.
Anyway, over the years, I kept on making excuses and prioritizing other things, instead of putting aside the money to make a trip home for a visit. I even intended to go home for my high school reunion earlier this year, but that ended up not happening. Now, however, things have changed. This death in the family is calling me home, and I have to be there for it. Unfortunately, I do not have the money required to buy my ticket home, so I've been racking my brain the past few days trying to figure out how to make it home in time for the funeral.
Earlier this morning, I was chatting with @sircork over in his @YouAreHOPE Discord channel, and he mentioned an idea of trying to host an art auction fundraiser on Steemit to try to raise the funds that I need. I originally was going to try to get people to donate their art to me as incentive rewards for a GoFundMe campaign that I was planning on creating, but then I found out that it takes several days to even withdraw the money from such a campaign, and I would not have received the money in time anyway. So I've spent the majority of today trying to refine that idea that @sircork proposed, trying to figure out how I could possibly carry out such a fundraiser.
Then I found out through @aggroed over at the @MinnowSupport Project Discord channel about this amazing new tool/system for auctions on the Steem blockchain called @steembay. I checked out their post from yesterday announcing that it was up and running, and started to think that maybe I could try to use that to execute this idea of hosting an art auction as a fundraiser to get me some funds in time to buy my ticket home.
It's truly been so depressing for me to see that all flights I'm finding from Salt Lake City (SLC) to Saipan (SPN) are upwards of $2300, knowing that I don't have any sort of money like that right now. This is a screenshot from expedia, but all the other sites I've checked bring up similar results, if not exponentially higher ticket prices (even after clearing the cookies in my browser, and even after trying different dates around my initial search).
So I'm making this post now to reach out to all the amazing artists we have here on the Steem blockchain, to see if any of you would be interested in helping me execute this fundraiser by donating some of your artwork towards such an auction, with the proceeds going towards helping me buy my ticket home. I would be eternally grateful to any of you who decides to help me with this through your donations of art, as well as anyone who ends up participating and bidding for the pieces of art that (hopefully) end up getting donated for the auction.
Raising $2300-$2400 in such a short time is such a daunting task, I know. It seems impossible, I know. But like I said at the beginning, "where there's a will, there's a way." That's why I am hoping that there will be more kind-hearted souls out there who read this who will be willing to help me out. Please leave a comment below if you would be willing to participate in this fundraiser. Thank you so much for reading this.
I hope to hear from you all soon! I also hope that you will consider resteeming this post so that more people can see it. Every little bit of help counts, and it is all so greatly appreciated! Thank you!
Check out some of my other posts!
What You Need to Know About Telling Veterans "Thank You" on Veterans Day
The Tossed and Forgotten - An Ode to Our Veterans
How I Achieved 200 Followers in My First Month on Steemit
Why I Chose to Invest $100 in Steem
My First Week on Steemit
The Dawn of The Dancing Dreamers
The Dawn of Friendship In a New Age
I'm Just an Island Boy Living in Utah who Loves EDM
!steemitworldmap 40.754539 lat -111.902618 long Salt Lake City, Utah local Steemian! d3scr
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Good luck. I am glad I was able to inspire a potential solution to your situation. When I lost my mom last year, I was lucky it was only a few hundred miles I could drive to get there. I hope you can make this idea work out to solve the problem, and if you do, it will set a new kind of precedent here as well for art auctions for charity. Best wishes!
Thank you so much, @sircork! I hope so, too! I didn't even think about the whole setting a precedent thing, but you're absolutely right. I seriously love the vision you have for this place and the countless possibilities you can see!
It's going to be a fun ride, cowboy.
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@sharoonyasir sent me here ;-) Now how can I help ? I'm willing to give art for your auction but have not lot of time on the net these time, so tell me how I can do and I will do it ;-)
Thank you so much for being willing to donate your art for the auction that I'm planning! If you could post a picture of whatever work you're willing to donate here in this comment thread, I will let you know when I am ready to proceed with the auction and we can go forward from there. :)
As for how I imagine it might play out,
I volunteer as tribute!! But in all seriousness you have my support. Just let me know I have things I can donate, art or funds. I'll do what I can fam ♥
Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!! You're the first volunteer!! I hope more and more people come on and volunteer too :D
Please post (a) picture(s) of whatever artwork you're willing to donate to the cause in this comment thread :)
Hi, mate! How to proceed with this? How are you gonna start? You need the photo of the artwork, right? And if it gets sold, we'll just connect ro the buyer?
Hello @ablckbrd! I haven't ironed out all the details yet, but my conceptualization of how it would work is that if there is enough interest generated, we would set aside a single day, just a whole 24-hour period, in which all the artwork submitted/donated for the auction would be listed in separate posts, allowing people to bid on each piece of art separately (from my understanding of how the @steembay system works, each auction has to be carried out in a separate post).
I would also have one "indexing" post that gathers all the artwork into one main post with links to each one, so that people could find them all in one place. Then the auction would run for a whole 24 hour period and then at the end of it all whoever wins each one would link up with the artist and they can make arrangements for the finalization of the sale then.
I would indeed need a photo of the artwork to feature in the posts. It might also help for the artists to include a little blurb about their piece and why it's important to them, etc. to add to the emotional appeal of it all perhaps.
All the posts would be set at 50/50 rewards, and while all the proceeds from the actual sale would go to me, I would donate all the SBD earned from the posts to the artists. It won't be much compared to the price of the final sale, but I'm hoping that it would be an acceptable donation in return for their kindness and willing to donate their artwork, a piece of their heart and soul, to the fundraiser.
Wow, I guess I had a lot more details imagined up than I had originally thought :P Does this sound like an acceptable idea for the fundraiser?
Definitely! I do not mind not getting anything btw. :) Kindly tag me regarding the final details. Better tag everyone who are interested once everthing's set.
Good luck! I really pray you can go home. Xx
Thank you so much! I'll be sure to keep you posted! :)
While the process seems fine, won't it take too long? When is the funeral due?
It will take "long," so if I have to I will probably end up taking out a loan or borrowing some money from a few friends, and then I'll end up repaying them as soon as I manage to raise enough funds to do so.
Please post a picture of whatever artwork you're willing to donate in this comment thread :) Thank you again!!
I will do what I can to help, either donate art or funds, as time-constraint and resources allow. Blessings to you!
Thank you so much, @thekittygirl! I really appreciate it!!! I will keep you posted :)
If you have a finished work of art that you are willing to donate to the fundraiser, please post a picture of it in this comment thread! :)
I have digital art that is "finished" on the computer, but not printed or framed. I don't have an adequate printer for art, so I'd have to find a place to do it.
Good luck for you, this story is heart touching
Thank you for your support, @fararizky! I hope you will consider resteeming my post so that more people can see it. Hopefully you have some artist friends who follow you who might be willing to participate.
Done
Thank you so much!
I know exactly what you mean, I went through the same feeling just last September when I wanted very badly to make it to my dad's 60th birthday. Everything was out of proportion- I just resigned from my job, my new visa was taking a long time to finish and yeah, the tickets were costly too. But through prayers, lots of prayers, the Heavens conspired and my kids and I made it to Philippines a day before my dad's birthday!
I sincerely hope you make it. Keep steeming!
Thank you so much, @arrliinn! I really hope I can make it, too.
Not much but better than nothing.
Thank you so much, I really appreciate it!
You are very welcome.