Fence Line Rescue · Season One · Episode 4 · Banjo’s turn
The best silent auction items for animal rescue are already in your town. You just have to knock.
[Editor note: IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: HEADER (16:9)] Caption: “There are two kinds of people at a door. I wag at both.”
IMPORTANT UPDATE: we are having an auction.
Not a bake sale. A bake sale is where people buy me biscuits and the barn roof stays broken. An auction is bigger. Footnote explained it to me three times. I understood it the third time, mostly.
Here is how it works. People give the rescue nice things. Other people bid on the nice things. The highest bid wins, and the money fixes the roof over Parsnip’s stall, and pays for hay, and pays the Vet, and maybe some of it buys crackers.
Footnote says it will not buy crackers. I’m keeping my hopes up.
The Fundraiser made a free account for the online auction. She talked on the phone with the Consultant, who has a calm voice like a radio playing in another room. The Consultant gave her homework.
Homework, part one: gather items.
Homework, part two: pull your supporter list together.
Footnote took part two. She sat on the laptop and said, “Mine,” and nobody argued with her, because nobody ever does.
I took part one.
Number One Hundred Ninety-Seven
The Fundraiser printed out a list of two hundred auction donation ideas. It was very long. She read it out loud at the kitchen table.
Trips. Tickets. Dinners. Lessons. Gift baskets.
Number one hundred ninety-seven said dog-walking.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: I am a dog. I walk.
I stood up on the bench. I volunteered. I wagged so hard the bench moved.
“Banjo,” the Director said, “you’re not an item.”
I was told I am not an item.
So I went and got my squeaky hedgehog instead. He is my best thing. He has one eye left and he still squeaks if you step on him right. I put him on the Fundraiser’s clipboard.
She looked at the hedgehog. She looked at me. She put her hand on my head.
“That’s the most generous donation we’re going to get,” she said. “You keep him, buddy.”
I kept him. But I want it on record that I offered.
The Volunteer Coordinator
The next morning I went door to door with the Volunteer Coordinator.
He wears a bright lanyard that says VOLUNTEER and a whistle he never blows. He walks fast. He talks fast. He thinks fast. I liked him right away, because he moves at the speed of a dog who just smelled something.
The Junior Volunteer came, too. She’s ten. She has yellow rain boots, which she wears even when it isn’t raining, and a notebook where she writes down everything I do. Her grandmother is the Administrator, so she knows how lists work.
“Okay, team,” the Volunteer Coordinator said. “Main Street. Every door. We ask nicely, we say thank you no matter what, and nobody eats anything they’re offered.” He looked right at me.
I don’t know why people always look at me.
There Is a Pie
The first door was the bakery.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: there is a pie.
It was in a box. The box was on a counter. The counter belonged to the Baker, who had flour on her glasses and a kind face and, I want to say again, a pie.
The Volunteer Coordinator said, “Sit.” I sat. I sat so hard. I have never sat that well in my life.
The Fundraiser had come along for this one. The Baker said she could give one pie for the auction. One. The Fundraiser looked at the pie. Then she looked at the Baker. Then she did a brave thing, which I could tell was brave because her clipboard shook.
“Would you do one pie a month,” she said, “for a whole year?”
The Baker laughed. Then she stopped laughing. Then she said yes.
She wrote “1 of 12” on a tag and tied it to the box with string.
The Pie-a-Month Club. Twelve pies. Not for me. I know. Footnote already explained it twice.
But I was there when it happened. I was sitting. And I think the sitting helped.
[Editor note: IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: KEY MOMENT 1] Caption: “One pie became twelve.”
Everybody Has Something
After the pie, the whole street opened up like a can of food.
The Farrier keeps Parsnip’s hooves trimmed. He wears a leather apron that smells like horse and hard work. He offered “a morning learning to care for your horse’s hooves,” with Parsnip as the demonstration model.
When we told Parsnip, he stood very still for a long time. Then he said, “I’d be honored. I’m also nervous. I’ve never been the example before.”
The barber offered a year of haircuts. A fishing guide offered a morning on the river and promised to bait the hook for whoever won. A family photographer offered pet portraits in the barn, and she took a practice picture of me right there on the sidewalk. My ear was up. It’s always up.
The Feed Store Owner offered a whole year of pet food. Then she gave me a biscuit. Then she gave me another one when the Volunteer Coordinator wasn’t looking. She’s on my list now. I have a list too. It’s in my head and it’s mostly people with biscuits.
Some envelopes were gift certificates. The Junior Volunteer put them in a big folder and wrote every one in her notebook.
That afternoon, back at the barn, one envelope was missing.
IMPORTANT UPDATE: Clementine is chewing.
She was standing on a hay bale. She was looking at me. She was eating a gift certificate for one large pizza.
I barked. She kept looking at me. She kept chewing.
She won.
The pizza place gave us a new one. They said it was the best story anyone had told them all week.
The Quilt
On Wednesday we visited the church, where the Quilting Circle meets around a big table with their needles going like a hundred tiny woodpeckers.
They didn’t give us an item. They made one.
A quilt with a square for every animal the rescue had helped. A square with a little doghouse on it for me. A square with a bookshelf for Footnote. A tall square with a horse and a crooked moon for Parsnip. A goat square, which Clementine has not yet tried to eat, which I think is suspicious. A square for each of the dogs who’d gone home off the Fourteen, the kennel row.
And one square in the corner, left plain.
“What’s that one for?” asked the Junior Volunteer.
The oldest lady in the Quilting Circle smoothed it flat with her hand.
“That’s for the next one,” she said.
I looked at the empty square for a long time. I thought about the seven crates. I thought about Duchess, who has been at the rescue longer than any of us and still has nobody. Every week people come and look at the dogs, and they pass Duchess’s run, and she lifts her old gray chin like a queen and they keep walking.
I went and lay down in front of Duchess’s run that night. She looked at me like a cousin she hasn’t approved of. But she let me stay.
[Editor note: IMAGE PLACEHOLDER: KEY MOMENT 2 → placed in “The Quilt” in the paste; kept here as the master list.]
Not Today
Not every door said yes.
There was a gift shop at the end of Main Street with a bell on the door and a lady behind the counter who was very busy. The Volunteer Coordinator asked nicely. She shook her head.
“Not today,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s been a slow year.”
There are two kinds of people at a door. People who say yes, and people who say “not today.” I wag at both.
So I wagged.
The Volunteer Coordinator smiled like she’d just said yes. “Totally understand,” he said. “Thank you for hearing us out. Here’s a flyer in case anything changes.”
On the sidewalk, the Junior Volunteer was confused. “Why’d you thank her? She said no.”
“She said not today,” he said. “‘Not today’ is just yes wearing a coat.”
One week later, the bell rang at the barn. It was the gift shop lady. She had a big basket with a ribbon on it: candles, a scarf, a mug, and a little stuffed horse that looked a lot like Parsnip.
“I kept thinking about that dog,” she said. “He wagged at me anyway.”
That was me. I was the dog.
Three More Things I Found
On the last day, in the feed-store parking lot, my nose went off.
Something’s over here. Something’s always over here.
Under a pallet of mulch there were three kittens. One black, one gray stripey, one orange and very sleepy. They were all mixed up together and very loud, except the orange one, who was asleep.
I didn’t touch them. I lay down next to the pallet and barked one time, polite, which is the signal for come look.
The Volunteer Coordinator came and looked. Then he said a word that wasn’t a bad word but almost was, and he called the Director.
Back at the barn, Footnote inspected the kittens like they were paperwork.
“The black one never stops,” she said. “Comma. The gray one keeps sitting between the other two. Semicolon. And the orange one…” The orange one yawned and fell asleep in the middle of the yawn. “Ellipsis.”
That is how Footnote names things. She says it’s “punctuation.” I think it’s love. I didn’t say so out loud, because she would sit on me.
Footnote’s List
Every night Footnote sat on the laptop while the Administrator typed in everything we gathered. What it was. Who gave it. Their address, for the thank-you note.
“If they gave, they go on the list,” Footnote said. “If they said no, they also go on the list. Different column.”
The gift shop lady moved from one column to the other. Footnote said it was the best edit of the week.
The Consultant called again. The Fundraiser told her everything: the pies, the quilt, the hooves, the fishing trip. She was worried it wasn’t enough to fill a whole auction.
The Consultant laughed, nice. She said the online auction already comes with lots of ready-made items, like trips and experiences and sports things, so a rescue never has to fill the whole catalog alone. “Your local items are the heart,” she said. “That’s what your people will bid on.”
The Fundraiser hung up and hugged the clipboard.
Are We Ready?
On Friday, the Board Chair came out to the barn and looked at the pile on the office table. The quilt. The basket. The folder of envelopes, minus one pizza, plus one pizza. A tag that said “1 of 12.”
He took his reading glasses off his forehead and put them on his nose.
“This is wonderful,” he said. “It really is.”
Everybody smiled.
“But the board isn’t setting a date,” he said, “until somebody shows me this rescue is actually ready.”
Everybody stopped smiling.
Except Footnote. Footnote looked at the laptop, and her tail did a slow flick, the kind she does when she already knows the answer.
That night I scratched my line on the fence post by the barn door. Day ninety-eight. Still being good.
I hope somebody’s counting.
I know somebody is.
Next time: the Board Chair wants proof. Footnote has a spreadsheet. The spreadsheet has opinions.
How Real Rescues Do This
Silent auction items for animal rescue: ask bigger
Banjo’s door-to-door day is how most successful rescue auctions get built: one local business at a time.
Lesson: procurement is about asking well, not asking a lot.
- Ask face to face. A walk down Main Street beats a hundred emails. Bring a photo of an animal you’ve helped.
- Ask bigger and more specific. One pie is nice. A pie a month for a year is an auction item people fight over.
- Experiences often beat “stuff.” Hoof-care mornings, fishing trips, pet portraits, and a year of haircuts give bidders a story to tell.
- Bundle small things. Candles, a scarf, and a mug become one gift basket worth bidding on.
- Track every donor, and every “not today.” Record what they gave and where to send the thank-you. “No” isn’t personal, and it often turns into yes later.
- You don’t have to start from zero. Platforms like Your Charity Auction come with more than a hundred ready-made auction items, so your local items can be the heart of the catalog without having to fill it alone.
Fence Line Rescue and everyone in it are fictional. The fundraising ideas are real.
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