Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center video debuts on successful night of fundraising!

​What an incredibly rewarding experience we had this past Friday! 

It was at the Great Smoky Mountains Heritage Center gala in Townsend, TN. This was the event for which I produced the above video. The purpose of the night was not only fundraising for the Heritage Center as a whole, but the "main event" part of the live auction was to raise money to help kids take field trips to the Heritage Center.

Before that part of the auction, they played my video.

Then the auctioneer announced the goal was to raise $17,500 for the field trips. What happened next was completely unexpected.

He started asking for $2000 donations. Two people generously raised their auction placards. Then $1000. A few more cards raised. Then $500. Now, the donations are coming in heavier. $250? More and more. By the time they finished accepting $100 donations, they had easily passed their $17,500 goal.

When it was all over, they ended up raising more than $21,000 just from that part of the live auction!

Leigh Wilson, the member of the GSMHC guild who hired me to produce the video, was overcome with tears of joy and rightfully so. She worked tirelessly on making the event special. While she and other guild members were overly thankful about the role the video played in the fundraising, I honestly think it was just a small part of a larger, focused effort.

Thanks so much to Leigh for inviting me and my wife as guests to the gala and for making this video production fun and rewarding! Congrats to the Heritage Center!