Furniture for fundraising
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- Published on Thursday, August 25, 2016
Photos by Tony Eu. Left: Four chairs (left), decorated by members of the Neepawa Art Club, are on display (right) in the windows of It’s Time Fashion & Gifts in Neepawa. The chairs are being auctioned off to raise money for ArtsForward.
By Tony Eu
Neepawa Banner/Neepawa Press
Passing by It’s Time Fashion & Gifts in Neepawa, you may notice something odd on display in the windows. Old wooden chairs, painted and redone, sit among the mannequins and clothes that are typically the sole occupants of the space.
These chairs are part of a silent auction fundraising event.
“[The fundraiser] is for ArtsForward, it’s just a sort of general fundraiser for our organization and will likely go towards visual arts programs,” said Rrain Prior, programs director of ArtsForward.
“[The fundraiser] is actually the brain child of Gwen Baryla, who is a member of our art club,” Prior explained. She noted that the arts club isn’t a part of ArtsForward, though they do meet in the building. Continuing she said, “[Baryla] sort of found these old worn wooden chairs at auction and they’re the sort that people are trying to get rid of, they’re mismatched sets, they’re the last one standing. So she brought them to the art club and thought it would be a great idea if [the members] decorated these chairs up and had them as things you can put in your entry hall or in your bathroom, some kind of decorative piece, so every member of the art club took one of these chairs to decorate.”
“What’s happening is they’re being on display in the windows of It’s Time, Ineke [owner of It’s Time Fashion & Gifts] has offered space for us to display them. Then they’ll be auctioned off at our wine tasting, which is on Oct. 22,” Prior added.
Four of the five total chairs are currently on display, with the last one not quite yet completed.
“It’s a silent auction, so [people] can bid now. There are bid sheets at It’s Time and the bidding will run until the wine tasting,” Prior said. Bidding will also take place at the wine tasting, which itself is another fundraising event for ArtsForward, held once every two years.
“It’s due to the generosity of the art club that we’re able to do this and we’re sort of always looking for fundraising opportunities here because we’re a non-profit,” Prior added as a final comment.
For more information, contact Rrain Prior at 204-476-3232 or by email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
