33,000

It's not the number of calories in 10 Big Macs (although it could be).  

It's not the number of miles to the moon.

It's not the number of minutes I could sleep.

It's how much we raised last night for Special Olympics PEI at the annual Special Olympics Festival.  

With 260 people in attendance, two different auctions (one silent and one live) and countless volunteers setting up, tearing down and working the bid tables, we were able to raise $33,000.  

I am far too exhausted and conflicted to write about the whole thing tonight, but suffice it to say, even though we packed a ballroom with some of the "deepest wallets" on Prince Edward Island, we were unable to achieve our goal on the silent auction.  This is a huge disappointment for those of us that worked so hard to come up with creative and unique items for the auction.  The biggest lesson here is that islanders put greater value in a $40 gift card then they do in private cooking lessons with Culinary Team PEI, or private photography lessons with one of the island's renowned photographers.  Who'd have thought?

Thankfully we had two last minute special items added to the auction that raised almost $10,000 alone.  Without those, we would have fallen short.  As it stands, I understand we exceeded past fundraising by over $3,000.  

So good for us.

Will I do it all over again next year?  Honestly, I don't know.  I believe in the work of SOPEI, but after the last few weeks feeling like I've been pushing this cart uphill without much help, I'm not sure I want to do the heavy lifting  again next year.

I guess asking myself that question the day after the event  is probably not fair.  But it is an honest assessment of how I feel right now.

$33,000.  You can create a lot of opportunities for athletes with $33,000.