Thanks everyone for your terrific support of REAL’s sixth online auction.  In an exciting finish, the 200 items attracted $4421 which was 138% of our goal.  Last years bid total was $3557.  In addition to the bids, several generous members contributed a total of $1205 to our fundraiser.

We were off to a great start when bidding opened Wed. Nov. 12 at 9:00 a.m. and were up to about $1200 by the same time the next day. The number of bidders rose sharply as well.  We were at just 45 the week before the auction started but were up to 168 by the end of the auction. Saturday Nov. 22.

As of November 30, all but about a dozen people had made their way to the REAL Deal store to pick up their auction items.  People seemed genuinely excited to have had the winning bid on their items.  Many people were new to the store and took some time to look around.  Hopefully they will see we have great deals all the time, not just during the auction, and come back again.

Most of the items were gently used things that had been donated to the store over the past year, although many additional items were donated once we put it out to our mailing list that we were looking for things to include.  Some other gifts from the community organizations rounded out the collection. 

The last half hour is always very interesting as there is intense bidding for certain items, and a few things that had no bids up to that point suddenly have a few people bidding on them.  In the end just seven items had no bids, and we will be selling them in the store or on Facebook Marketplace.  If you did not have a winning bid, thanks for trying, you helped bid things up and make our fundraiser more successful!

Below are some summaries that may interest you.