Chairs For Charity Raises $10,000 For Seniors' Services

Dec 04, 2013

Local seniors were the biggest winners at the Southern Frontenac Community Services' recent Chairs for Charity Auction fundraiser, which took place at the Grace Centre in Sydenham on November 29 and raised $10,000 for seniors' services. SFCS board chair Joan Cameron spoke at the event about the services that will benefit from the fundraiser. These include the adult day program, diners club, meals on wheels, home care, volunteer hospice, bereavement and caregiver support, transportation services, foot care, income tax clinics, and a number of social and recreation programs that include the VON Smart program, Tai Chi, sittercize and yoga.

The $40 ticket for the event included a pre-auction social and grazing hour where guests snacked on an impressive spread of fancy hors d'oeuvres and drinks generously donated by several local food and beverage artisans, including the Casa-Dea Estates Winery, Barley Days Brewery, the Kingston Olive Oil Company, Limestone Creamery, Desert Lake Gardens, Bread and Butter, Fred's Bread and Seed to Sausage.

Guests also had a chance to preview over 100 auction items in the center's downstairs community room, which were all donated by local businesses and individuals.

Auctioneer Ralph VanKoughnet took up his anvil at 7pm sharp and the bidding began. The highlight of the evening was the auctioning off of 20 colourful chairs, benches and tables, each painted by 20 different local artists. Many of them fetched over twice their reserve bids of $150. A burly bunch of volunteers from Sydenham High School moved each chair to the front of the hall where the bidding took place and in many cases, exciting bidding wars were played out.

Nona Mariotti, who chaired the event and who is the board secretary with SFCS, said the popular auction has been running for close to a decade now and has evolved over the years from a smaller event to something that is quickly becoming a popular art-based fundraiser. “These pieces are not really chairs; they are one of kind original art pieces," she said.

Mariotti herself walked away with a chair painted by Ann Barlow, a beautiful piece that took Ann over 100 hours to paint.

More than 150 people attended the event, which is the SFSC's major fundraiser of the year. Its goal is to not only celebrate local food and art but also to inform people of all the seniors' services offered by SFCS.