The Rotary Club of Stirling was approached by the the Community Cupboard/Food bank several years ago, to assist them with their Christmas baskets. At the time is was understood that year there were 75 families locally needing help. We were shocked that our little village had so many families needing help so we offered to put together an online auction to raise the funds. Rotarian Terry Vollum has been a huge help gathering items and more recently Beckie Sarles-Davis has also joined the team. The first year we may have only had 25 items and it has grown to almost 100 this year. All the items are donated by generous local business owners and Rotarians.
The following story appeared in our local newspaper and was written Terry Vollum.
STIRLING – Here’s some great news for the Early-Bird Christmas shopper: the Big Day will be here before you know it and shopping for gifts can often take up most of your last-minute, rushing around time. But this year, if you have access to the Internet, you have an opportunity to greatly reduce the number of hours otherwise spent dashing from store to store. Here’s the scoop: Once again Stirling Rotary is hosting an incredible online auction featuring a wide variety of terrific items you can score as Christmas presents for those all-but-impossible-to-buy-for people on your Christmas list. Or you might want to snap up a little something for yourself. All from the comfort of wherever you feel most comfortable while surfing the net. “This will be our ninth online Christmas auction,” explained Stirling Rotarian and auction organizer, Laurie Osborne, “and it gets bigger and better every year. In fact what we hear most often is how impressed everyone is with the incredible variety and the quality of the items up for bids.”
The Stirling Rotary online Christmas auction site is a little different from most other shops you’ll find in cyberspace and likely a whole lot more fun. The wide assortment of unique gift items is far too extensive to list but here is just a sampling. You can bid on a pair of Platinum tickets to a Toronto Maple Leafs game, or stunning gift baskets from World’s Finest Chocolate, Empire Cheese, and Mary Kay. Plus gift certificates for local cafes, restaurants, supermarkets, LCBO, Dooher’s Bakery, and Lyman’s Landscaping. As well, there’s a teeth whitening voucher from Stirling Dental or a beautiful one-of-a-kind Christmas gift bag from Stirling Guardian Pharmacy, a deluxe HD Dash Cam, plus great merchandise from the Buff Stuff Store along with Family passes to Farmtown Park. And for the golfer on your Christmas list there are green-fee passes for several area golf courses. And if you happen to be planning to build your very own putting green, you can bid on 22 yards of topsoil. You won’t find such a wide variety of items in any one store. But you will find it on the Stirling Rotary Online Christmas Auction website. This year the Stirling Rotary Online Christmas Auction goes ‘live’ at 6:00 p.m. Friday Dec. 2 and runs until noon, Friday Dec. 9.
Aside from the thrill of participating in a virtual auction, you’ll have that warm feeling that you are helping to support the good work of Stirling Rotary. And that’s because all proceeds from the Christmas online auction stay in the neighbourhood to support the Stirling Community Cupboard (Food Bank) and their Christmas Food & Toy Drive – an annual campaign that ensures no child will go without a Christmas gift and that all needy families in Stirling-Rawdon will enjoy a Christmas dinner with all the fixings. And even though you’ll find Stirling Rotary’s online Christmas Auction on the World Wide Web, it’s really just a friendly neighbourhood shop – not unlike an old time General Store, filled with marvellous items generously donated by thoughtful, good-hearted neighbours. “As a club we certainly appreciate how fortunate we are to be living in such a caring community,” said Osborne, as she sorted through and continued to add items to the auction site, then added, “Our auction line-up is strong thanks to the generosity of many Stirling area businesses and of course the tremendous support we get from our friends over Campbellford way.”