In a surprise turn of fund-raising events, bake sales have been out-cashing bowling parties, community dance troop shenanigans and letters to potential corporate sponsors.

Our latest bake sale at 2025 West Broadway sold out! We raised $188.44 that day. Bumping us up to $5594 for The Arthritis Society so far!

So we’re coming back. With even more goodies. June 23rd at 2025 West Broadway, 8:30am-2pm. Sinful treats alongside ones that’ll make your colon sing.

We’re even thinking of having a jokes-for-free side of the table…maybe all about baked goods.

Hey what did the m&m say to the chocolate chip?

Get yr own cookie….

(I did say the jokes were for free, right?)

It’s T-minus 21 hours until our next Arthritis Society fundraiser and this one is even sketchier turn-out-wise. We don’t  have the White Stripes behind us, but we do have Commodore Lanes & Billiards and while it may not be rock n roll, it’s bowling. Which is really a lot like rocknroll but with bigger balls.

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I have to come clean the above paragraph was a draft of a post written the day before our Chuck the Stapler and pick up a ball fundraiser which was an Office Space & Big Lebowski dress up party (is someone going to catch on that we’re having way too much fun coming up with fundraisers?) And while it was sketchy turn-out wise (about 15 people showed out of 42) the people that came made it one heck of a good time.  A few even dressed up. And all beat their case of the Monday’s with a cold beer and a few 5-pin strikes.

In reality, we raised $3 that day. But we put the whole $300 in. The thing was, people were really stoked and want to help us do the next one and the next one after that, so really that 3 bucks does feel like 300 when you’ve got those kinda dressed-up-awesome people helping you out.

Flare and all.

This was our top prize

Not only was it won, but the person who won it then wore it and bowled a strike, that's the "wild" in wild side!

Thank you!

Yeah yeah oh-yeaaaaahhh.

Jordan and I are crossing our score cards in hopes that you will put on a housecoat or a tie and join us for some 5-pin fun.

Our next Arthritis Society fundraiser….(Kenny Rogers singing ohhh yeahhhh)…. The “Chuck the Stapler and Pick Up a Ball” fundraiser.

What the heck does that mean you ask?

1) We came up with the title really late at night, in a burst of creative hilarity and thought it would be genius

2) We both really love the movies Office Space and The Big Lebowski and was trying to figure out a way to combine them in both in our next event

3) We want people to dress up either as their favourite Office Space character or Big Lebowski and put the Swinger red stapler aside for some bowling time

4) We both suffer from ‘a case of the Monday’s’ on Monday’s, Tuesday’s, Wednesday’s, etc and there’s no better cure than a bit of The Dude or anything narrated by Sam Elliot.

5) Even Milton abides.

All money raised goes to lift our pink mercury up, up way up! (which is a weird way of saying it goes to The Arthritis Society; full disclosure: I named this event too, sigh)  :)

You can email Jordan at jordanwhemsley@yahoo.com to pick up a ticket!! He did this funny video-ad for it too! (And Jordan looks like a younger Kenny Rogers but he sings like King Diamond and Ronnie James Dio). ohhh yeahh.

b-b-b-bam-bam b-b-b-bam-bam, I wanna be more organized.

Not sure the Ramones would have rolled a cigarette or took a shot of whiskey to that last one, but I think if I was more organized I wouldn’t want to be sedated.

I’ve got that 200-cigarettes feeling for our Arthritis Society fundraiser tomorrow. I feel like Martha Plimpton’s Monica- making cupcakes, sending out thinly veiled beseeching emails and texts to close friends to bring their friends and that guy they always wanted to talk to at the office and then maybe his brother and if his brother’s neighbour is out on the front stoop then convince him to come too.  Ahh, nerves or is that excitement?

When it comes to raising cash they’re the same thing.

Throwing a big public bash feels like first date jitters. It’s exciting to go out with someone you don’t know but it’s such a risk from the usual pyjama pants and The Office routine. You have to be hopeful and realistic, but even more hopeful. Of course, we’ll break even, we may even make a hundred bucks towards the cause! Maybe a thousand! Someone’s shirt will come off! Who knows?!

In less than 24 hours our very first big public fundraiser will be game on.

The good news is our fundraiser is a White Stripes documentary. That’s like having a really cool older brother let you sell your Girl Guide cookies at his all-weekend party. You might not sell anything but you know your life is gonna be changed. That’s the thing about rock n’roll.

So having Emmett Malloy’s film on the screen already gives us a rock up from me playing an off-version of Alouette on my grade school recorder while crying. Already it’s waaayy better than that.

Last ticket count from Zulu Records has us sold 42, we have sold 12 ourselves and there are 194 seats to fill with sweet sweet fundraising love.  We need to sell 80 to break even.

So…140 people isn’t too many to expect at the door…right?…right? Well, not if someone’s shirt comes off.

Join us tomorrow at Pacific Cinematheque at 1:30pm. Cupcakes, prizes, swirly candy and rock n roll. Tickets are $10.00 each but 20-bucks worth of fun.

Radha’s Vegan Bake Sale for Haiti was delicious and spiritually nutritious. A combo the yoga & eatery seems to serve up on a regular basis.

I ordered the soup. That's oregano oil on top, mmmm.

It was my first time in the space and it was packed. I’m not sure if it was because it was a special occasion but the feel in the room was exactly what I first came to Vancouver for: possibility and warmth mixed with a devilish sense of fun and irreverence.

A piano player sat down next to our table and made what looked like a very charming (aka old) piano sing like it was Etta James.

Now, I have to be honest, I didn’t want to get  my hopes up for the baked goods. I mean the night felt incredible enough as is but I was to become shocked by my own shortcomings when I tasted what must be love in a paper baking cup.

the cupcake that can change the world

This cupcake was so moist and sweet and like a first kiss with a new boyfriend that I had to loosen my scarf.  You see, I love baking and a few years back dabbled in veganism (I’m vegetarian now) and I can remember my partner liking everything I made except baking:  brownies: dry and crumbly; cookies: tasted like bran flakes with honey, carob soy chocolate banana pie: tasted like fake chocolate pudding with fruit. The only thing I could get some praise for was apple crisp and yah, that’s delicious, but c’mon, it’s apple crisp. It’s almost so good for you it could be breakfast and where’s the treat in that?

Our table had a cupcake, square, and three cookies to choose from.

Out of a yummy assortment of baked goods, our table voted the vanilla cupcake with the coconut icing the best treat we have tasted in a long time. Not just out of the goodies present, but out of all goodies ever made by people. (Who knows what cats can come up with).

Although hard, I will stop talking about the vanilla cupcake that I’m sure Zeus would have included in his clay colliseum in Clash of the Titans and get to the money part. Bongo roll… a preliminary estimate of the vegan bakesale profits was a cool $3000 and with government matching could jump to six grand. That total is from vegan rice krispie squares, vegan cookies and vegan cake alone. Wow! And no apple crisp in sight.

But by far the sweetest treat of the night came from one woman and her guitar.

So many cute vegan-friendly people were sitting on the floor holding hands while Frazey Ford sang to us in a voice that could chill a ghost and warm a soul.

I couldn’t believe I was eating soup and cookies while she sang just a few feet in front of me!

Yup, lately I almost forgot the original reasons I wanted to come to Vancouver -but when Frazey Ford sang and joked about being a product of dysfunctional hippy parents, they all came flowing back, one sweet reason at a time.

Poster for the fundraiser at Raw Canvas. Visit www.bavubuka.org.

A few weekends ago I braved the rain to find a little soul. And I ended up finding a whole lot more. Upon first walking through the doors of Raw Canvas, I was hit with a sincerity and joy I haven’t felt since Chris Farley performed on SNL. I couldn’t tell the strangers apart from the people working there and the people working there from the people hosting the fundraiser because everyone seemed so universally happy. Even with our sopping umbrellas and wet feet, there wasn’t one person not smiling.

I was soon to join their numbers.

It was pretty hard not to considering why we were all there.

The Bavubuka Passion Project is an interesting amalgamation of two very cool, local do-gooding entities: The Passsion Foundation and the Bavubuka Foundation. Both of which help empower youth through the arts. As I talked to Maughan Mariani, Executive Director of the Bavubuka Foundation and Loretta Cella, founder of the Passion Foundation, I was struck by their ability to create something where it didn’t exist. Not only the fundraiser itself, but in the case of Loretta Cella she created a foundation especially for young women in British Columbia to feel autonomous and good about themselves. To have someone see that as important is very powerful.  As I’m sure it is very powerful to the young women involved as well.

Maughan Mariani and Loretta Cella’s enthusiasm and dedication in their projects have brought like-minded community powerhouses into the fold. Every single person volunteering for their foundations are working for one clear goal: to help empower young people the way young people want to be empowered.

Here are two excerpts from interviews I did with Maughan Mariani and Loretta Cella at Raw Canvas where the Bavubuka Passion Project fundraiser took place on November 28th.  On the streets outside it may have been flood-warning raining, but inside you never would have known it.

*The full interviews will be available on M2M on CJSF 90.1fm in mid-January.  Tune in for those during a show tentatively called “Tales of Good Vancouver”.