By Celeste Kennel-Shank
Mennonite Weekly Review

	Antique cars on display at the 2007 Idaho Mennonite Relief Sale. — Photo from Idaho Mennonite World Relief Festival Web site
	Like many other relief sales, the quilt auction is a highlight at the 2007 Idaho Mennonite Relief Sale. — Photo from Idaho Mennonite World Relief Festival Web site

The Idaho Mennonite World Relief Festival has had a challenging year but plans to go forward, holding the event May 17 at College Church of the Nazarene in Nampa.

Mennonites in Idaho had already faced challenges in starting a relief sale in a state without a large Mennonite population.

“It was a grassroots efforts to get this sale going,” said Rick Bollman, the Idaho relief sale chairperson.

Bollman is originally from Indiana and grew up attending the Michiana Mennonite Relief Sale in Goshen, Ind., one of the four largest of the sales held in North America to raise money for Mennonite Central Committee.

Several years ago, MCC was promoting new relief sales in states that did not have them, Bollman said. He had been interested in starting a sale but was not sure how, or whether there would be enough interest.

“We had had active people working to make quilts and make items through the Washington sale and the Oregon sale,” he said.

Then, an MCC relief sale board member approached Bollman at the 2004 meeting of Pacific Northwest Mennonite Conference near Seattle, encouraging them to start a sale, Bollman said.

“It was really God’s work,” he said. “When we then gathered a few people together to see who might be interested in starting a sale, we gathered a committee of about 10 people.”

Several of those people then attended one of the workshops MCC holds biennially to encourage volunteers to share relief sale ideas.

After finding volunteers, the planning committee was challenged by bringing them together across a large geographical area, Bollman said.

Bollman said his church, Emmaus Christian Fellowship in Meridian, and other Mennonite congregations in Idaho are spread over about 200 miles in the southern part of the state.

They decided to hold the sale in Nampa, in the broader urban area that includes Boise, Meridian and Caldwell.

Another challenge is the low number of Mennonites in the area.

“It’s not like Kansas or Indiana where people know what a relief sale is,” Bollman said.

After meeting the challenges of getting congregations together, this year volunteers had trouble getting a venue. First, Northwest Nazarene University had booked the Brandt Center, where the sale had been held in the past. Then the university offered the Johnson Center, but that location suffered extensive damage from a fire.

Finally, a board member looked into using College Church of the Nazarene, located on the same campus, and was able to secure it for a better weekend, too.

“That was a real answer to prayer,” Bollman said, adding the setting might even be more appropriate for the sale’s size.

Douglas Berg, who has coordinated MCC relief sales with his wife, Harriet, for seven years, said he has been seeing more urban Mennonites starting relief sales, despite having fewer Mennonite churches and thus, fewer volunteers.

“Through dedication and work and a vision, they are bringing the message of the Mennonite church and MCC to their area,” Berg said. “There is an important opportunity there to provide a witness.”

Berg said urban sales are often held at locations such as colleges, rather than county fairgrounds, where most rural sales are held.

“MCC is very supportive of any urban area that would like to follow in Idaho’s footsteps,” Berg said. “Relief sales generate anywhere from $10,000 to $500,000. Every penny counts.”

Berg, who attended the first Idaho relief sale in 2006, said being in a building at the College Church of the Nazarene gave volunteers control over the weather and a good stage and sound system for the auction.

The sale resembled others, though, in including Penny Power, an initiative for children to raise money for MCC by collecting pennies, as well as a quilt auction.

“The quilts were the highlight of the sale,” Berg said.

MCC relief sales raised more than $5.5 million in 2007, with 45 sales in 22 U.S. states and five Canadian provinces, Berg said.

The Idaho sale has seen an increase in the money raised each year they have held it, Bollman said. They donated $46,500 to MCC in 2006 and $54,000 in 2007. They are aiming for $56,000 this year, he said.

“God is really blessing us with this opportunity,” Bollman said.