An industrious group of women thought of a way to turn their costume jewelry into turkey dinners.
The women, who live at Chartwell Muskoka Traditions, are members of the H.O.P.E. (helping others for purposeful engagement) committee which works year round to raise funds for charitable organizations in the community. This time of year their charity of choice is Chrysalis, a 24-hour crisis shelter in Huntsville for abused women and their children. For the past two years the women have donated money to the shelter, which in turn is used to put on a Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings.
Always looking for new ideas to help raise the money for the worthy causes they support, they came up with a plan that was both fun and profitable.
“We all had jewelry that we were ready to part with,” said Chris Karn, spokesperson for the group. “At first we thought, well maybe we should have a trade. And then we thought, well no, if we get enough, and we didn’t even know if we were going to get enough, but if we got enough we decided would have a sale. We got so much that it was just wonderful. Everybody seemed to think that it was fun. Look at what we raised. We aimed for $350 and we went over the top!”
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- Ruby Johnson proudly shows off a piece she picked up at the sale.
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- This beautiful ring now happily lives with Ella Masters.
In fact, the group raised $359.20 for Chrysalis and have so much jewelry left over that they intend to do it again.
We held the sale on the same day as the open house at Chartwell hoping that we would get lots of outsiders and it would not be just us trading jewelry, but we have so much left over that we are going to have another sale and we hope people from outside will come this time. We will know what we have to sell so we will be able to advertise it a little bit more.Chris Karn, H.O.P.E. committee member
While raising money for local charities is admirable work it is also obvious that this group of woman have a lot of fun together. “We do manage to get some work done,” Marge Denis said affectionately.
Stay tuned for details of the next sale. “I think some of the pieces that were bought might just come back,” quipped Chris.
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Well done ladies. Seniors can still do a lot for their community. Nice to see your efforts recognized. We know four of the ladies in the photo, miss all of you and the wonderful community of Huntsville, which I suspect we will always think of as home. Ches is still with us, but getting steadily weaker. Thanks to Liz Rice for keeping us current on Huntsville happenings. Blessings, Betty Fulton