A BIG thank you to an interesting group – the AASB has helped our library for over 7 years and their story is heart warming as well as interesting. Sergio Valenzuela of Akumal… you gotta love it FACEBOOK fame(https://www.facebook.com/groups/LoveAkumal/), is one of the original members of this group and continues to help organize many events to help raise funds for the library. Below is the interesting story of the group and its fund raising success!!! Thank you, Serge and AASB!!!
From Sergio Valenzuela:
This year the Akumal Adult Spring Break (AASB) group had their 7th annual silent auction in support of The Hekab Be Biblioteca de Akumal. The auction was held at the Lol Ha restaurant on May 4th from 3:00 to 5:00 with entertainment provided by the Salty Showbirds. Unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate with us and we were hit with a rainstorm that flooded the auction tables, bid sheets, and auction items. Not letting the weather deter us, we brought all the auction items inside under the palapa and decided to do a live auction because some of the bids sheets had become unreadable. Thanks to Gary Landreman, who volunteered to be the auctioneer, we were able auction everything that was donated and raised over $2,000 to support library programs.
The AASB group is a group of friends who plan their spring vacation together and meet in Akumal. Over the past seven years the AASB group wanting to give back to the community has raised nearly $12,000.00 for the library. Every penny raised at the auctions is donated to the library and not one cent is kept for operational expenses. Everything we auction is donated by a core group of AASB’ers, locals, and businesses in the Akumal area. This is very much a group effort with everyone contributing in some manner throughout the entire process. As was demonstrated at this last auction, we were very adaptive when faced with adversity!
A special thanks to George Connell who coordinates these auctions, everyone who donated and participated, Laura Bush for the use of her property, and the Salty Showbirds for providing the entertainment and donating all their tips to this cause.
These auctions inspired me to try a T-shirt fundraiser on our facebook group, Akumal, You Gotta Love it!!! I figured with over 2,800 members, we should be able to meet the print goal of 50 shirts and we did. The first fundraiser was launched in February 2015, we sold 58 shirts and raised $870.00. The second fundraiser in October 2015 sold 65 shirts and raised $910.00. The third fundraiser was launched in March 2016, selling 54 shirts for $760.00. In total we raised $2,540 in T-shirt sales and contributions for the library.
Sergio Valenzuela
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