The Lake of the Trees Bible Camp is overwhelmed with gratitude after their fundraising auction, after an eight-year break from hosting it.
“It was a lot. We are thankful for an overwhelming donation of auction items and nice ones,” said Tom McIntosh, the camp’s director. “At this point, we’re still getting our list together. We had to combine some of them there were so many of them. There was well over 200.”
The camp is still counting the proceeds, but McIntosh said they have raised over $10,000. Again, he mentioned the profuse generosity of the community donating and buying items.
Two pies, according to the director, were auctioned off at $500.
Including volunteers, around 200 people attended the auction, which also acted as the camp turning 50 years old celebration.
McIntosh said he received several comments from attendees, particularly about the rustic-camp decor, but mentioned a comment from one woman in particular. She said it was her first auction and that it exceeded her expectations. She also said the camp had made a difference in the lives of her family over the decades.
“This lake was used in the 1940s/50s for logging and the lease to this camp was granted to this camp,” McIntosh said. “I think it’s a really cool development over the time like the tent platforms for the first summer in 1969 that got turned into cabins in the summer in 1970. Two of them are still here today… It has always been a culture of volunteerism and service that’s kept it sustainable and probably the previous ten plus years that it was at Sucker Lake previous to us moving to this lake.”
A neat part of the auction was the decor. A tent stood up on the stage in the background, and while it’s not part of the camp’s 50-year history, it is connected.
Donated as decorations for the night, McIntosh was blown away when he found out the tent belonged to his great grandfather who was prospecting in on the Northern B.C. coast. It possibly even could have belonged to his great-great-grandfather.
“It was kind of a neat blast from the past, you might call it because that was the whole theme of us turning 50,” he said. “A local family here in 100 Mile House are friends with my uncle and so it was passed to them via my uncle (not from 100 Mile area).”
McIntosh wanted to pass on his thanks to Jonathan Peters, the auctioneer, and the rest of the volunteers who he said went over the top in their dedication to pull off the event and clean it up. He also wanted to give a shoutout to the businesses and individuals who donated items for the auction.
“They get asked by so many people for donations and they kept giving when we came around. That’s incredible to me,” he said. “I think people realize that this is a local story, with local children in need, with local volunteers and local donation dollars. This is really a made-in-the-Cariboo story.”
