Wow!

Okay, I say that a lot, but what else do you say to $20,000.00??

Yeah.

That’s $20K. 20 Grand (Isn’t that a candy bar?). Twenty Thousand Dollars.

All for Make-A-Wish Foundation® of America via firstgiving.com. All thanks to the generous people in the Disney Online Community. All of you.

I’m still in awe. I’ve spent the last couple of days going over the accounting, double and triple checking all the numbers. We were a bit rushed at the end of MagicMeets to get our “big reveal” out there, and I knew a few of our numbers were a little bit off on our posters. So here’s the final breakdown:

Celebrity MagicTunes, the fun new addition to the Friday night events, collected $325 for Dream Team Project and the equal amount for Deb Wills’ Avon Walk for Breast Cancer. Many thanks to Mike Scopa of AllEars.Net, Mike Newell of MouseWorldRadio.com, and Trent Schwartz of DisFriends.com for this, and for the priceless opportunity to see “Moonwalkin’ Mongello.”

Tim Devine of The Magic in Pixels donated a portion of his sales as well as the proceeds from the sales of postcards and magnets featuring the “A Dream Come True” Castle print. We sincerely thank him for the $400 donation!

WDW Today encouraged their listeners to make online donations to our page at firstgiving.com/dwtdreamteam. Their efforts raised $1637 (and an additional donation of $250 was received on Sunday, too!). Mike Newell, I can’t thank you enough for the idea, and many thanks to everyone who participated. We had donations come in from as far away as Japan and Singapore! That’s just amazing!

Our “Magic” wands sold out (with a little coaxing from Fred) by lunchtime, and no one got bonked over the head with one (that I know of anyway). All the wands, and the buttons and in-house donations made that day, added $1225 to the total! (A few onsite donations came in after our total was announced, and I had missed some tally marks on our wand sales, thus the higher amount) Our “two Katies” Kathryn & Kathleen, the teenage sales girls who gave up a weekend just to help out, deserve a big hand for their efforts. “You look like someone who could use a wand....Have a magical day!” You girls rocked!

The auction itself surpassed all our hopes, overcame all fears of a bad economy, and was incredible. We hoped we might make at least the $9000 that last year’s totals came to... maybe dreamed we’d crack 5 digits... but never did $13,667 seem like a reality! The generosity of people like Deb Wills and Steve Barrett and April Baker, who post bidding-end offered to give a matching lot to the second-highest bidder if they met the high bid, thus doubling the totals on the several lots they had contributed, was just so much above and beyond anything I could have imagined.

Then, as Beci herself said, “But wait, there’s more!” as MEI and Mouse Fan Travel brought a big check onstage for the amount of $2523.76 - contributions from 2 months of bookings through their agency. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the house by this point. And then Lou announced he’d donate the balance needed to make it an even $20,000.

There’s that “Wow!” again.

We look so serious in this picture, you might think we had bad news! 

Standing on the stage as Justin Muchoney, CMO, read each total and the posters were unfurled, was surreal. Even though I had written the numbers on those posters just minutes before, it hadn’t sunk in. I was still in the “do what we have to do” mode, organizing, solving problems, keeping everything moving as smoothly as possible, and I don’t think I heard much of what was said, and I know I couldn’t look at Lou or Mike or Fred. Somebody told me later the room gave us a standing ovation. I hope all of the reactions were captured on the MagicMeets DVD.

If I actually read my cue card, my closing went something like this:

“A very big thanks to the auction team - all 20 of you who worked so hard to make this day happen: April, Janet, Lori, Lesa, Tracy, Linda, James, Valerie, Michelle, Amanda, Brian, Kellie, Kelly-with-a-y, Kathleen, Kaitlin, Kathryn, Meg, Tracy S., Sue, and Teresa. You guys are THE BEST! (and let me add a thank you to Rosemary, who came to the meet with Kathleen & Teresa and jumped right in with both feet.) Thank you to Lou. Thank you to Fred. And thank you to all of you. Together we’ve made some fantastic magic today for the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Thank you!”

Don’t think I can say it any better, and the feeling remains true. Thank you.

Even though the auction is over, our fundraising efforts continue year-round, and so will this blog, so come back again soon to hear more about some of the other projects and people helping make wishes come true!