MCC BC Festival Breaks Records with over Half Million Dollars Raised

Mennonite Central Committee
Saturday, 30 September 2000

Erwin Cornelson, an 80-something woodworker, proudly showed off his receipt.

"Look, the best I've ever done!" he beamed, pointing at the figure over $2900. " And the best thing is it all goes to MCC."

Cornelson is a fixture at the Mennonite Central Committee's (MCC) annual Festival, Auction and Relief Sale. People come specifically to buy his chairs made of recycled chair parts, children's building blocks, bowls and wooden plates on which he has carved "Give us this day our daily bread." Each year he donates all of these items to the festival as his way of contributing to those in need around the world. And Cornelson is just one of hundreds of volunteers who bake, sew, build, glue, cook, grow and make countless other contributions to aid in the success of the festival.

Thousands of people turned out for the Festival, which ran September 15 and 16 at the Abbotsford Exhibition Park, and included food, music, children's activities, craft and bake sales and the auction of quilts, vehicles, furniture, and other goods. This year, the efforts of volunteers and the generosity of participants paid off in record numbers.

"The money is still coming in," said Henry Klassen, Relief Sale Coordinator, "but we have already brought in $525,000."

Passing the half-million mark makes this a record. No other MCC festival in Canada comes close to reaching this amount. Another MCC BC record was broken when one of the quilts made by the MCC BC Quilters sold for $4700, the highest price for a quilt auctioned to date. The quilts alone raised more than $40,000. A unique part of the auction is the auction of a loaf of bread symbolizing the power of giving. This year the loaf went for $5000.

But whether festival goers spent 25cents to have their faces painted or thousands at the auction, all of their efforts contributed MCC's relief and development work in India, Sudan, Uganda, and Venezuela. Walter Bergen, Resource Development Coordinator for MCC BC, reflected on the generosity of all those who gave in some way.

"These are the people that I have the privilege to work with," he said.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org