Better at Home is hosting a fundraiser to help pay for more contracted services, like house cleaning and snow removal, for seniors in the Quesnel area.
Brenda Gardiner, who runs Better at Home in Quesnel, says she has to budget out, for example, how much cleaning the organization can provide to the local seniors who need it, and divides that amount by those of her clients who have been assessed and require the service.
“The more clients I get, the more need there is. And I have to cut it off because our budget can only handle so much,” says Gardiner. “So then I try to raise extra money that can go into that budget as an add-on to provide services for seniors who are on a waitlist. So, right now I have four seniors that are on a waitlist that I do not have money for.”
She says each of those clients are in serious need of the service.
The fundraiser will be a dinner gala event, with a live auction, a silent auction and a dessert auction. Gardiner has spent the last several weeks collecting works of art from around the community to feature in the auctions, with a “featured artist” who is also a client of Better at Home.
“It’s a wonderful little lady by the name of Pat Wilkins, and Pat is a self-taught artist,” says Gardiner.
“She’s been my client for close to five years now, and we’ve only been open for six. And she lost her leg for health reasons, so she sits in her apartment and just paints and paints and paints.”
Wilkins donated 40 pieces to Better at Home, and Gardiner chose 20 to be included in the fundraiser, which will feature artwork from artists across Quesnel.
“And they’re fabulous,” she adds.
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Many have reached out to Gardiner and offered her pieces to include in the auction, or asked her to come by and pick one out herself. Now, she says she has “quite a smattering of amazing stuff and more on its way.”
The live auction will include the larger pieces, while the silent auction will feature “really cool” smaller pieces, as well as an Art That You Can Part With table, where people have donated pictures they’ve hung in their homes for perhaps such a long time that they’ve grown tired of looking at it. These pieces, Gardiner says, are so far all in beautiful frames.
Another local artist who doubles as one of Gardiner’s clients paints rocks. Her artwork will also have its own table, Rocks by Emily.
“You have to see them to really get the beauty of them,” says Gardiner, adding: “they’re phenomenal.”
Gardiner says she is still looking for desserts to be featured in the dessert auction, but she thinks she is otherwise set for the other auctions.
She’s also hoping people make sure to buy their tickets to the event in advance, so The Occidental, which is hosting the evening, can know what to expect when making its food orders.
“I am just blown away by the generosity of people in Quesnel,” says Gardiner.
She says she is also struck by the large artist community in Quesnel and how supportive they have been of her fundraiser so far.
The Better at Home fundraiser will take place Friday, March 8 at 6 p.m. at The Occidental. Tickets to the event are available at The Occidental and Better at Home, or by calling Gardiner at 250-992-9156.
Heather Norman
Community Reporter
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