OLDS — The Rotary Club of Olds is staging its annual fall fundraiser this week, but it will look different this year, due to COVID-19 pandemic protocols.
Instead of holding the event in one place on one day, this year’s version will be a virtual online auction which can be accessed via Facebook.
The event, called the Rotary Club of Olds Harvest Online Auction, will run Monday Oct. 26 to Friday, Oct. 30.
“It’s all set up and ready to go. People can start looking at the items that have been donated,” Vicky Barzey, the club’s community public image chair, said during an interview.
All funds raised will go toward the Rotary Athletic Park. The club is in the final stages of raising a total of $500,000 over five years to help fund creation of that facility, located just north of Walmart, along 70th Avenue.
For years, the Rotary Club of Olds has held a harvest-time gala fundraiser for the community with different themes.
But because pandemic protocols make that difficult, the club decided to build on the success of this summer’s virtual golf tournament by staging its gala virtually as well.
“Usually they did dinner and dance and the silent auction and it was a big event. But there were also hundreds and hundreds of man hours that went into that to pull that off,” she said.
“So do we think that we will make what we would make normally in that type of a setting? No. But we can’t have that this year anyway, so this is the next best thing.
"And our (virtual) golf tournament went really well.
“Really, at the end of the day, we wanted to continue to support the community. So we can’t stop, right? And I think it’s very important with what’s happened that we keep moving things forward.
“The community still needs help fundraising and that’s what Rotary’s here for, is to serve the community.”
Due to the pandemic, club members aren’t going door to door to canvas businesses for support and fundraising items like they did in the past. But they’re happy to accept donations, and so far that’s gone really well, she said.
“We’ve had some people who have stepped up and said, ‘Here are some funds that we would like to go toward that auction’ so we’re just kind of figuring out what to do with that,” she said.
Anyone interested in providing donations to the Rotary Club’s online auction can do so by texting Debbie Unger at 403-586-3577 or drop their donation off at Coldwell Banker Vision Realty to Rick or Ray.
