We don’t do a lot of fund-raising events. Since everyone at FOTORELIEF is working on a volunteer basis, we only get around to doing these events once in a while. But I bought a house on the east end of Long Island a couple of weeks ago and that sort of prompted me to get the FOTORELIEF machine cranked-up again.
I closed on our house the day of the earthquake in Haiti. The next day I drove out to check on things at the house. (That’s what homeowners do isn’t it — Check on things… There wasn’t really anything to check on, I just wanted to go out and walk around the yard and enjoy the moment). It’s pretty cool being a first-time homeowner… Lots of thoughts of family: My kids running around the yard; Wouldn’t that be a good tree for a tree-fort; Maybe when I get a little more cash, I’ll put an addition over there: etc… All those good thoughts of home, family and security were going through my head. The sad irony of the moment was that on the drive back to the city that evening, I was sitting in traffic on the LIE listening to the reports of the devastation down there — All of those thousands of people that lost everything; members of their families; their homes; what little security they did have, all taken from them… and it really hit me just how fortunate I am. By any standard, I am fortunate: I have my health, my family, my home. But by Haitian standards, right about then, I was the most fortunate person in the world. Our economy may suck right now, but it’s still a thousand times better here than it is down there.
About five years ago I had organized with some friends, the first FOTORELIEF project in reponse to the Tsunami disaster in December of 2004. Starting in January, by the middle of April 2005 we had pulled it all together and had an event at MILK Gallery that raised over $150K for the US Fund for UNICEF. It was pretty cool just starting it from scratch with some friends and then growing it with all of the contributions and help from so many different people… And the resulting auction and event raising a pretty good chunk of money for the survivors of the Tsunami… A lot of work, but it did pay off.
Sitting in the car that day, I thought it was probably not such great timing to do another fund-raiser with the economy like it is — There’s probably not a lot of extra money floating around to buy art… But I imagine the people in Haiti didn’t think much of the timing of the earthquake either. So, let’s try it.
I’ll use this space to keep anyone interested, updated on the whole process of putting together this photography auction / fund-raising event.
– John Gettings
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