Only 3 more sleeps until the Silent Auction on Friday! Now’s the time to check out some of the artwork up for auction at the TW4H website and strategize how you’re going to get the piece that you like the most.

Tonight we feature the artsy language services provided by volunteers Kat Asari and Tomoe:

• Kat Asari has a Masters in French and recently returned to Toronto after studying and teaching in France. With five years of experience tutoring, Kat has taught French and English and can provide instruction entirely in French. – Tomoe has extensive experience in teaching Japanese language courses to university students.
• Tomoe also writes articles in both English and Japanese for major newspapers and academic journals. Whether it’s translation or language instruction, Tomoe can help you with all your Japanese language needs.

We have also updated our featured artwork:

Who did you talk to about Friday’s Silent Auction today? Have you managed to bring the discussions about the Oscars last night ever so smoothly back TW4H + Auction? We wonder what kind of conversations you ended up having and hope they led to a casual, playful start of a work week. Only four days are left till the auction and things are falling into place.

Our feature service providers tonight are Kim Sorbara and Jennifer Visser. Kim and Jennifer are offering their 2 hour personal coaching service packages at the auction. Working with Kim and Jennifer will help you define goals and plans through the process of self-discovery, and give you confidence and clarity as you move forward.

The upcoming week will be an exciting one at TW4H as we get ready for Friday’s Silent Auction at Cafe Quaff. One way to beat the Monday blues is to tell your friends and colleagues tomorrow about the Silent Auction – it’s something that we’re all looking forward to!

Today was filled with planning meetings. It was a great, productive work day while happy birds and bright sunshine pulled us out of the room to take a walk just before the sun was about to set. We also received door prizes from Rightsleeve.com, Woolfitts.com, and De Serres.

We want to feature Rick and Ryan tonight, two of our service providers whom you will get to meet at the Auction. Rick specializes in customizing marketing programs to your business. He can help your business develop, plan and improve marketing strategies. Rick happens to be a great photographer as well! Ryan will sit down with you and help you choose the clothes that will fit you best, based on your lifestyle, needs and goals. You’ll get a chance to understand what you already own, and go shopping with the style expert.

Here’s a sample of our artworks:

Elliot is an artistic economist, designer, and marketing manager. Let’s put it this way – he tells stories of places with photographs as he can with graphs and numbers. On a professional level, Elliot has done portraits and product photography that have been featured on many websites.

Kilim is a traveler, humanitarian, photographer, and blogger. Her photos and blog transport us to a world that is unknown to some. You can check out some of their work below and at the auction!

With what appears to be a glorious weekend fast approaching, we have secured another musician to play at our auction, and received six pieces of art donated by Artist Hae. Here’s a quick preview.

Untitled, mixed media on paper, 2009

Han River Hope, mixed media on paper, 2010

Sae Hae Kim, also known as Artist Hae, is a South Korean artist based in Toronto whose work focuses on form, colour, composition, movement, and emotion. She takes pictures, chooses images, and forms a pattern out of them. Artist Hae says these small images represent memories of a person’s life and symbolize past, present and future. Artist Hae has shown her work around the world including the recent Toronto Art Expo. Come check out her work next Friday!

The Globe and Mail ran an inspiring article yesterday about a Toronto based group named Brandaid. Originally created with the aim to market the work of artisans from poor nations, the group has now changed its focus and is reaching out to groups of artisans in Haiti and helping them with restarting their craft.
There is of course no doubt as to the necessity of rebuilding or emergency relief efforts, but lending a hand out to the cultural sector not only suggests benevolence but also recognition and appreciation of Haiti’s unique culture and that recognition I think, has a special role to play in rebuilding Haiti.
On our front, efforts continue with event planning. There is ongoing marketing, we have received some generous donations for our door prizes, and we are going to pick up some of the artwork tomorrow afternoon. In short, we have plenty to keep us busy for the next few days.
There will also be some changes in the face of our blogs in the next few days. While we are going to blog to keep up with what is happening, we are going to turn our attention a little more to featuring some amazing people. Stay tuned!

I have always had a fascination for languages. Their ability to draw people together in mere seconds or to push people far away from each other never ceases to amaze me. As I was struggling to translate our press release into French (and kicking myself for not having attended French auctions more often so the related vocabulary would stick) I really wanted it to be just right, to be able to send out not only information but also the message, our message.

I was not sure I had managed that when Elliot emailed me saying they were going to send the final version to Groupe Professionnel Haïtien de Toronto who would subsequently to forward it to their 1000 members. Strangely, instead of making me panic, the thought reassured me. Our message was not going to be lost in translation, here were people who had already heard it, and remained reassured that others would too, if only we could bridge over with words in a different linguistic code. Our willingness to put ourselves out there is coupled with their willingness to hear us, and that would gap over any misjudge I could make in my translation.

A little moral of the story, lets not be afraid to reach our far and wide. People will hear us.

Excitement and anticipation is on the rise as we get closer to the auction. As you probably already know from Elliot’s message, during tonight’s more auction planning and discussing took place. There is a new poster, please feel free to distribute it to friends, family and colleagues.

The auction will be a silent one, and what we are working on now is marketing, marketing and more marketing. We are reaching out to various media in addition to our personal contacts. Please feel free to forward any ideas you may have.

Looking over the news pages in the last few days I noticed that there are less and less stories about what is happening in Haiti. Is Haiti already forgotten because other things have happened that demand attention with more urgency? I think we can answer a safe no.

In fact, this may be a case of less news as good news. Haiti might be pulling itself steadily out of the headlines dealing with imminent emergencies. That is certainly a sign of moving forward, slowly but steadily. In good time, we will come across a title highlighting amazing new developments in Haiti since the earthquake. That certainly is something to look forward to. In the mean time, we are doing what we can to help bring those headlines along a little faster.

Over the weekend, we went to check out Toronto Art Expo for some inspiration and quality down time. You know – to get mind off all the stuff, look at beautiful art and be refreshed. We were not expecting to run into some amazing people with big hearts and incredible generosity.

We met some great folks at an organization called Groupe Professionnel Haïtien de Toronto at the event. GPHT has been helping people of Haiti in many different ways and raising awareness of Haitian culture and history here in Toronto. Through the help of GPHT, we will be able to show you some great pieces by Haitian artists in Toronto at TW4H + Auction.

Artist Hae is a Toronto visual artist who makes it her mission to donate a portion of her work for great causes. After hearing about TW4H + Auction, it didn’t take her even a second to say yes to donating her pieces. We’re sure that you’ll love Hae’s amazing work with mixed media.

We also ran into a lovely Haitian lady named Cecile at the Expo and told her about our auction. Cecile, who drove all the way from Niagara Falls to help out with GPHT’s charity art sale at the event, pulled us aside. She said, “I want to tell you how Haitians are greeting each other these days.” On a brown paper bag, she wrote, “sak passé, map boulé.” To a confused audience standing in front of her, Cecile put on a big bright smile and said, “in creole, sak passé means it’s in the past and map boulé means everything will be alright. So when someone greets you with sak boulé, say map boulé. because everything will be alright.”

The excitement of the Olympic Games is still fresh. Well, we won the coveted gold medal in men’s hockey and then found out we won the most number of gold medals ever in the history of the Winter Olympic Games! The whole country’s celebrating and it’s only appropriate we invite our guest blogger tonight who just returned from Vancouver to share her thoughts. Take it away, Katherine -

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On my way back from Vancouver, I reflected on my experience at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games. Giving out of free hot cocoa to visitors, fanatical shopping, collecting of Olympic souvenirs, and overflowing of people filling the streets nightly. It seemed the excitement and ecstacy of these games had completely taken over the city. The sufferings of the Haitians became forgotten, who are still in need of shelter, clean water, and medications. Amidst all of this, it was the story and journey of the first Ghanaian athlete to compete in the Winter Olympics that helped me circle back to our fundraising efforts to help Haiti.

Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong truly embodies the spirit of the Olympics. Without any support from his government or corporations, he worked as a porter, general labourer, bell boy, and all kinds of odd jobs to make ends meet and pursue his passion. He was able to maintain his focus on skiing and to continue training by tagging along the teams from other countries armed with fancy equipment and endorsements. Kwame kept on competing in as many international skiing events as possible. Along the way, his tenacity and determination earned support of many including his coach, manager, webmaster, and physical therapist, who all have volunteered to help him at no cost. When he and his team qualified for the Olympics but couldn’t afford the accommodation in Vancouver, a family in Vancouver took them in.

Like Kwame’s, raising $5,000 for Haitian relief has been a journey out of ordinary or extraordinary to us. Some of us have stepped out of our comfort zone, and have done a lot of things that have nothing to do with our profession such as cold-calling, copywriting, (professional) blogging, social network marketing, and planning an art show. We have received a lot of help and support in learning the ropes of fundraising campaigns. Mark supported us with website and branding development. Sophie taught us so much about social networking marketing. Rick, Ryan, Kim, Mike, Karen and many others provided valuable strategic advice. Last but not least, our core team of volunteers has been a superb network of support for anything that came our way. Yes, we had our doubts and struggles, and yet, we cheered each other on to continue to march towards our goal.

Just like Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampon, with honest, hard work and support from those involved, we will get there – fundraising $5,000 for the people in Haiti. We remain determined to continue to share the dream of Haitians of rebuilding their country.