Saturday 1st May, saw the draw for our Haiti painting and our winner was announced as Michael Ross.
Back in February, artist Lisa De Prudhoe, Wendy and Molly from The Wendy Levy Art Gallery in Didsbury and Didsbury Life, set ourselves the very ambitious target of raising £20,000 for Unicef’s relief effort in Haiti. Lisa very generously donated her canvas and the Wendy Levy Art Gallery and Didsbury Life set about raising awareness of the campaign. In a very short space of time, we’d set up a website which could take donations, a Twitter account and a Facebook account.
From a conversation about the possibilities, suddenly money started to come in and we realised that we were in a position where we could make a little bit of difference to some people still suffering in Haiti. As the days passed however, the emphasis on Haiti was pushed further down the news agenda, as other events took over. The devastating Chilean earthquake just served to remind us of how Mother Nature, in other circumstances so beautiful and awe-inspiring, can equally be monumentally destructive. The Icelandic volcano was also headline news for awhile. People did without question suffer as a result of this particular force of nature, but I for one would rather have an enforced, albeit unexpected and expensive, addition to a trip abroad, than have to be living through the daily horrors that the people of Haiti are still doing.
Haiti
It would have been easy to let the campaign slide, as Haiti slid out of the news. Ater all, none of us were being paid for doing this and we all have other full time jobs. However, what motivated all of us, was the thought that people – very ordinary people just like us, who on the 12 January were going about their ordinary, everyday business – now face a future that is so uncertain and frightening. So, we didn’t let it slide and we kept up the tweets, and the blog updates and the continuous haranguing of everyone on our collective mailing lists.
And now, even though we didn’t hit the £20,000 target, at the time of the draw we’d hit a very respectable £6,919. Some people may view that as s having failed in our attempt. We don’t see it that way. Without this effort, and the immense generosity of friends, colleagues and people we’ve never met, Unicef now has almost £7,000 more than they would have without our project. And, I think we’d all agree, £7,000 is not a sum to be sniffed at!
However, this isn’t the end. Donations can still be made until 8th May – although the draw has been done, we feel that there is enough generosity of spirit out there, for people to just donate.
And – further plans are being hatched. Once you have the bit between your teeth, it’s hard to let go…
A huge thank you to everyone who donated – and once again, congratulations to our winner, Michael Ross.
