Written by Kenzie James \/\/ Graphic by Ben Evans<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Local nonprofit Imagine and Believe hosted their fourth annual \u201cDessert Auction Extravaganza\u201d last night. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Imagine and Believe provides clothing, supplies, food and community for foster and adoptive parents in the Searcy community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Founder Christine Faith said this resource is needed to help foster families with the expenses of caring for the children they take in because Arkansas\u2019s Department of Health and Safety only gives foster parents about $13 per day. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur goal here is to let foster parents know they\u2019re not alone,\u201d Faith said. \u201cThe community cares about the mission God has given them.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Faith said she had the idea for the dessert auction when Imagine and Believe was looking for a fundraiser to organize because charities do not often host dessert auctions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe just felt like it was a neat way to do a fundraiser at a time of the year where there\u2019s not a lot of other fundraisers,\u201d Faith said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This year\u2019s dessert auction was the first one volunteer Susan Harrington was involved in. Harrington has been working at Imagine and Believe for the last four months after being a Court-Appointed Special Advocate with the DHS. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harrington said she was excited to be part of the fundraiser for the first time and that she helped decorate and set up the desserts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Harrington said she found Imagine and Believe when she stepped back from serving as a CASA. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI needed something to do to still help children,\u201d Harrington said. \u201cI have just fallen in love with [Faith\u2019s] mission.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The auction was hosted at the Searcy Country Club, where it has been all four years. Leah Ruddell, the country club\u2019s group coordinator, was in charge of creating the floor plan and decorating for the auction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always been a real successful event out here, and we always enjoy having them out here,\u201d Ruddell said. Ruddell said the fundraiser, which is a silent auction, receives donations of items like Easter baskets from companies and businesses in Searcy. All the desserts are made and donated by individuals in the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Faith said women from different churches make their \u201csignature\u201d desserts and that the auction allows them to share their work with the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fundraiser also helps Imagine and Believe share more about their mission with the community. At each auction, a different foster parent will make a brief speech about their experiences. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been really neat to see what an impact that\u2019s had on the community,\u201d Faith said. \u201cA lot of people don\u2019t understand foster care, but these people are missionaries.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Written by Kenzie James \/\/ Graphic by Ben Evans Local nonprofit Imagine and Believe hosted their fourth annual \u201cDessert Auction Extravaganza\u201d last night. Imagine and Believe provides clothing, supplies, food…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15068,"featured_media":19644,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[663],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19643"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19643\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19645,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19643\/revisions\/19645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19644"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}