Symbolic loaf sells for $244,000

Two girls get ready to bid on kid-friendly items in the children’s auction at the MCC Festival held in Abbotsford, B.C.

More than $650,000 was raised for Mennonite Central Committee’s FoodBasket projects at the annual MCC festival and auction in Abbotsford, B.C, a record amount.

Some 25,000 people came to eat, shop, visit, bid, play, listen to music, and give – and that with what The Abbotsford News called “unprecedented generosity.” The auction of quilts and household goods brought in over $350,000, including the traditional symbolic auctioning of a loaf of bread, which sold for $244,000. Total monies raised exceeded last year’s giving by some $100,000.

“We’re benefitting from a good economy,” Angelika Dawson of the MCC B.C. communications department said, “. . . and people are thankful.”

All proceeds benefit FoodBasket projects such as agricultural training in Cambodia, food for orphans in Colombia, and food relief in Sudan.

—MCC B.C., The Abbotsford News