KidLit for the Philippines: The Fundraising Continues!

I've been hard at work tallying up our final numbers and making sure all of the pledged donations have been paid directly to UNICEF and Mercy Corps. There are a few high bids that still need to be paid, but I'm hopeful those folks will take care of their donations in the next day or so. 

(If you are a donor and have not heard from me about delivery of your service or item, that means the highest bidder has not yet made the pledged donation. Please do not make arrangements outside of the auction to deliver the items. I know it's easy to communicate these days with Facebook, Twitter and other places on-line).

Drumroll please....

The final auction total is $4627!

But that's not the end! Katie Davis has made an amazing offer. For every full price Video Idiot Boot Camp course she sells, she'll donate HALF of the cost to #KidLitPhil. So far she raised an additional $742.50!

So the current total is: $5369.50! YAY! We broke $5000!! 

Learn about Katie's offer below. And please help spread the word! Let's see how high we can get the grand total.

A few housekeeping details:

1. Emails have been sent to everyone who was a "highest bidder" and submitted proof of donation to me. If you sent your proof and have not heard from me, please email me ASAP and I'll connect you with the donor of your item. michelle(at)michellecusolito(dot)com
2. In case you're someone who likes to add up totals... you'll notice that the published highest bids do not equal the total at the top of this page. That is for 2 reasons: Some people donated more than their winning bid; other people made a straight donation and submitted a receipt to me so the donation would count toward #KidLitPhil.
3. Which brings me to this: If you just heard about #KidLitPhil and don't want to take Katie's course, you can still help. Make a donation to UNICEF or Mercy Corps and send me a copy of your receipt (michelle at michellecusolito dot com) and I'll add it to our total. 

Finally, THANK YOU so much to everyone who donated, bid, tweeted, emailed and otherwise shared news of the auction. You really cannot understand how much it all means to me.

With that, I'm signing off from blogging until the new year. I'll post donation updates on our Facebook page. If you're interested in seeing them, please "like" the page. Come January, I'll publish the final number here on the blog.

Until then, Happy New Year everyone!

With Sincerest Thanks,

Michelle

#KidLitPhil Auction item 32 from Katie Davis

KidLit for the Philippines is an online talent auction to benefit Mercy Corps and UNICEF relief efforts for Typhoon Haiyan (aka Yolanda). Agents, editors, authors, and illustrators have donated various services and items to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, with donations being made directly to Mercy Corps and UNICEF.

Auction #32: Video Idiot Boot Camp (on-line course)

Description: A course for people who think videos are hard to create. Learn more here: http://videoidiotbootcamp.com/ (Note from Michelle: I haven't taken this on-line course but I did take Katie's face-to-face intro workshop at the Spring NE-SCBWI conference. It was terrific! I'm confident this course will be fantastic.)

Estimated Value: $297

Minimum Bid: $197

Auction Ends: 12/8/2013 at 10:00 PM EST

Bio: Children’s author/illustrator Katie Davis has published nine books and appears monthly on the ABC affiliate show, Good Morning Connecticut, recommending great books for kids. She produces Brain Burps About Books, a podcast about kidlit, a blog and regular newsletter. Katie has volunteered in a maximum-security prison teaching Writing for Children and over the last dozen years has presented at schools and writing conferences. She’s a 2010 Cybils judge and has also judged the Golden Kite, smartwriters.com, and Frontiers in Writing awards. Recently Katie was selected to be on the Honorary Advisory Board for the Brooke Jackman Foundation, a literacy-based charity.

Donor Katie Davis’s website: http://katiedavis.com/

Auction Instructions:

* Bid by posting a comment with your bid amount in U.S. dollars; no anonymous bidding.

* Do not bid unless you intend to pay that amount to Mercy Corps or UNICEF.

* To automatically receive updates on the latest bids, check the “Notify Me” box when you submit your comment.

* Highest bid before the end of the auction wins.

* A note about last-minute bidding: If you are used to online auctions that end at an exact, given second, please know that the KidLitPhil auctions don’t work quite that way. Each auction ends when I post the “Auction closed” comment. I do that when my computer turns to 10pm EST, but because I have multiple auctions to close at that time (also because I am human) it will not be precisely at 10pm EST. At any rate, the winning bid is the high bid before the Auction Closed comment, even if the time on your computer reads slightly after 10:00. Thanks for understanding!

* Winning bidder must donate the winning bid amount to a designated charity organization and provide a copy of the receipt within three days of notification.

* For physical items, unless otherwise noted, donor pays standard shipping within the U.S.; winning bidder pays for express shipping or for shipping outside the U.S.