BLYN — The Gateway, still a new fundraiser, has outdone itself.
The dinner and auction in 7 Cedars Casino’s Club Seven lounge Saturday night, a benefit for both the Boys & Girls Clubs of the Olympic Peninsula and the Promise of Hope Foundation, raised $10,500 for each.
“I am still on cloud nine,” Gateway organizer Barbara Brown said Monday.
“It was a wonderful evening,” that began with champagne and peaked with a total of $21,000 raised.
That’s 31 percent more than last year’s $16,000, though this was only the second annual event.
With 60 guests, The Gateway was at capacity, and auctioneer Brian Goodwater of Stokes Auction Group presided over bidding on some 20 live auction items, which included getaways to Park City, Utah, and San Diego.
An additional 25 items filled the silent-auction tables.
Brown, owner of Tender Touches Skin Care Spa in Sequim, established the Promise of Hope Foundation as a nonprofit in January 2010 to generate support for children in rural Masaka, Uganda.
The foundation now provides the required uniforms, books and school supplies for students at St. Charles School, an elementary school there and has purchased a computer, copier and printer for the nearby St. Joseph Nkoni high school.
Brown, a 16-year resident of Sequim, also wanted to support local children, so this year she named the Boys & Girls Clubs’ Sequim and Port Angeles units the other beneficiaries of The Gateway.
The event is called The Gateway because, Brown has said, it’s about raising money to educate young children, to open a path toward healthy lives.
Noting that the Boys & Girls Clubs logo shows hands clasped together, Brown added that the fundraiser was aimed at fulfilling that idea by connecting children in Africa with kids on the North Olympic Peninsula.
“Lines on a map? They don’t matter when it comes to kids,” Boys & Girls Clubs executive director Mary Budke has said.
Among the Promise of Hope Foundation will fund is installation of computers and Internet access so that American sponsors of Ugandan children can exchange emails, Brown said Monday. The children read and write in English, so their supporters will be able to communicate easily with them.
To learn more about sponsoring a Ugandan student, visit www.ThePromiseofHope.org or email info@ThePromiseofHope.org.
Brown also supports the children at St. Charles School through “tuition Tuesdays,” when she donates 10 percent of proceeds from product sales at Tender Touches, 545 Eureka Way in Sequim.
For more details, phone 360-681-4363 or visit www.Tender TouchesSpa.com.
________
Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-417-3550 or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.