Many thanks to all who supported our Third Annual Mardi Gras Celebration & Silent Auction! It takes many hands to make an event a success. Very special thanks to…

• The many people who donated the 165 fabulous items for auction and/or made financial contributions!
• All our wonderful Set-up Volunteers who transformed our Multi-purpose room into a veritable Mardi Gras GALA…masques, beads, doubloons, feathers and mylar fringe at every turn!
• All 124 people who attended, brought all the delicious food and drink, and made the event a PARTY!
• Thrivent, through the efforts of Paul Gross, for providing ‘matching funds’ to add to our total!
• Our dynamic Youth and their awesome leaders, Jon Dame and Beth Antons, for providing FREE babysitting so more parents could attend!
• Our terrific Banking Crew (David Thomas, Emily Thomas, Beth Kelly, and Jenny Beam) who kept all our bid sheets straight, their calculators buzzing, and smiles on their faces all night!
• Les Albers, the most fabulous and most fabulously dressed EmCee on the planet, who kept us hopping, bidding, and laughing all night! You rocked the house! And Les’s lovely assistant and daughter, Karen Froelich, for assisting her dad with the modeling of the Jingling Jester’s hat! 
• Dottie Whitaker, aka “Check-in Queen”, for being such a good sport and indeed wearing aforementioned Jingling Jester’s hat to church the following day (anything to raise money for hurricane relief, right?) 
• Our Fantastic Fellowship Chair-Pair, Jack & JoAnn Grant, who are the most amazing examples of walking-the-walk ever! They will never ask someone to do anything they aren’t willing to do----‘cause they do it ALL! From storing donations, to setting up, to concocting yummy Hurricane Punch, to keeping the bank database up-to-the-second current, to personally delivering grandfather clocks, this pair is beyond compare! 
• Holly Thomas, beloved sister-in-law and behind-the-scenes second in command---can’t imagine making this work without your tireless enthusiasm and amazing financial/computer skills! You make the bank SING with efficiency! There are not words to thank you enough. 
• Larry Beam, Superb Sound Man and My Man Friday, who’ll pitch in wherever and whenever needed. 
• Our un-official-but-very-appreciated Clean-up Crew…all you wonderful folks who stayed until all the fringe was un-fringed and the place perfectly in order for worship the next morning!
• And finally, to all who purchased items at the Auction….with your help we raised $11,450 for hurricane relief! Hopefully we will be adding $1,600 in ‘matching funds’ from Thrivent, and will be sending a total of $13,050 to Bethel Lutheran Church Hurricane Katrina Ministry in Biloxi Mississippi!

If you have caught the bug and want to do more, please contact Jack & JoAnn Grant, Biloxi Work Trip coordinators for the summer trip (June 21-28) with Bethel Lutheran Church Hurricane Katrina Ministry. Many skills are needed---there is a job for everyone!

With heartfelt thanks and dreams of our Fourth Annual Mardi Gras Celebration,

Terri Beam, Coordinator