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On July 28, 2007 after weeks of collecting donations to purchase a permanent residence for our precious teacher Geshe Jinpa Sonam, IBC held a Fund Raiser Party - one last campaign to raise the funds necessary to make a downpayment.
As Clifton Carmody, IBC President, wrote in his BLOG: Last night we had a very last minute fund raiser with about 70-80 very determined people from Anderson to Bloomington to Knightstown! The day started with people from all over Indianapolis making foods and sweets of every type in their kitchens. Cars packed with all those great dishes of cakes, cookies, cupcakes, dal, rice, mo-mos, noodles (and more) came packed along with chairs and tables and some wonderful auction and raffle items. They made their way to north Indy for the big event. The room was filled with Angels that could survive being packed in a room (not quite enough chairs for everyone to sit at the same time) that was very warm (nobody was heard complaining except yours truly!) as they dug deeper and deeper into wallets and purses to help build a beautiful center for learning and contemplation in the heart of Indianapolis!
Being involved in the fledgling Indianapolis Buddhist community for about a decade, I saw many long time supporters as well as some new faces. Heard over and over again were comments to the effect that actually having a center (finally)was a great thing; that Geshe-la was wonderful for making this happen; and (for those that have seen it), the actual property was absolutely gorgeous (which it is!) So many area people it seems have been waiting for peaceful contemplative place (that is Buddhist in nature) to finally happen.
The night went on... a couple of announcements; a great dinner made by many including Geshe Jinpa (who had been cooking for three days to prepare for this event); a cake walk (how did that saying ever evolve into meaning something easy?); a silent auction (with a bunch of sweet, compassionate, generous people bidding intently and uncompromisingly against their friends, all for a great cause!); and the finale of the evening, the raffle drawing.
As the night came to an end, everyone collected their gifts and prizes (the smaller than usual number of kids making out like bandits, getting an inordinate number of takeaways since so few made it last night!) As the many thank yous and phone numbers were exchanged, the end of the party was approaching;and finally those working for the last couple of weeks finally sat down for some food themselves... and it began. The final countdown. Would we have the $40,000 down payment?
Cake walk, raffle, silent auction, kids raffle, and the water jug money started to be counted. We need about $160,000 to buy and fix this property, but without the first $40,000, forget about it! The fund raiser all together was to bring in nearly $3000 (over three times the amount any fund raising dinner has brought in before!) We started to count.... BTW- getting dollar bills out of a water jug is a bit tricky! and count and count. It was not looking so good. We still had some to count but it did not look like we would get that last $$600-$700 or so. Bummer. So what do we do? Count again of course! Maybe our karma will change? As we are counting an already generous donor walks over to the table (we looked like we belonged in a back room in Vegas somewhere with our stacks of bills.)
"How's it coming?" he asks.
Nervously, not wanting to put a damper on such a successful evening, came a chorus from the counters of an unsure "ah....fine, fine."
"You gonna make it?" Now its getting ugly, he wants the facts!
"Yes, welll ummm, let's see" as the computer spreadsheet is brought out and the counters nervously look at each other. "Not exactly. Looks like we might be just a bit short" Not knowing exactly how much, not wanting to sound overly optimistic, or falsely pessimistic, we give our best estimate.
"Well, my wife and I would like to offer another $500" he says in a very quiet almost apologetic voice. And the crowd goes wild!
The counters continue, rechecking our stacks and the spreadsheets, adding another $500 to their numbers..... There are only diehards left in the room, even most of the diehards have left!. All the board members and a couple of Geshe-la's closest students and fans are left, thats it. We are taking a well deserved rest, sitting, before the clean-up begins, this is it, we are done with this crazy campaign we are allowed to sleep tonight! The counters finish and the total is.......
All of sudden, out of the blue, one of the counters shouts in the quiet room "EVERYONE BRING ME A DOLLAR!!!!" Her nine year old looks worried thinking "you made me spend my last dollar on the cake walk, Mommy." The last of the people in the room look on with disbelief! They have worked ceaselessly for over two weeks!; they have dark circles under their eyes; their thumbs are bruised from doing mantras; carpel tunnel from emailing all their friends for donations; they have spent all their money on donations for the center, the food for dinner, the raffle, the cakewalk etc. etc ... humphhh! What?
The counter screams out again "everyone bring over a dollar, the total is $39,991!" Up jumps everyone, corners of purses and pockets are searched, waded up bills are smoothed out, the table is surrounded with outstretched fists full of dollars... 7..., 8.... 9!!!! The small crowd goes crazy!!! Hollywood could not have done it better. Applause for about two minutes. A goofy big grin from yours truly. Congratualtions... pats on backs.... hugs all around.... tears.... smiles.... more tears.... we did it. It was beautiful. And you did it. Without even one dollar bill... as Geshe-la says "no chaaaance!"
You did it. Thank you.
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