Meeting Location
As of March 19, 2021
SANDPOINT CENTER
SANDPOINT CENTER
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Dear Members,
March is one of my favorite months. My birthday is in March. Spring is just starting. The days are brighter. Birds are singing again. The Community Assistance League (CAL) determines how much we have for Grants and Scholarships.
Last March life as we knew it suddenly changed. We did not realize how different it would be. March 2020 was when all were told to stay at home. As a part of the compliance, we naturally closed down Bizarre Bazaar, CALs funding source for its Grants and Scholarships. Because of the consistently great leadership of years past, CAL had the funds to cover its basic overhead costs for many months, but we had stopped the revenue stream for 2021 Grants and Scholarships.
In spring 2020, the Grants Committee requested that a part of their grant funds be set aside for special grants for organizations that were providing emergency services in our community because of COVID. The Grants Committee figured out how to evaluate and fund both emergency grants as well as our usual grant program, while abiding with all the COVID rules. The Scholarship Committee did the same. Thank you ladies of the 2020 Grants and Scholarship Committees for your ingenuity in getting the job done.
Luckily we live in Idaho. We were given relief from “staying at home” and were able to reopen Bizarre Bazaar in May. That was a scary move by the Board. What were the rules? How did we make volunteers and customers feel safe and comfortable? Would there be enough volunteers? Would the customers return? Would we have donations? One of the changes we made was to reduce the daily hours so that we only had to staff one shift a day - how would this affect sales? Volunteers, based on their personal comfort levels, were creative about what was needed to keep Bizarre Bazaar operating.
So we managed with the volunteers who were able to help. The customers returned immediately telling us over and over that they considered Bizarre Bazaar an essential business and they were so glad we were back. Donations were plentiful.
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Thank you all for living the mission.
