By: Arianna Bonner
St. Martin's, Charlotte

I first learned about the Invisible Children Organization through my youth group. Two of my youth leaders, Andrew and Taylor, were very involved in the organization. They showed the documentary to the older youth members and I became interested in seeing it. I went home curious as to what they had seen. I watched it that night on the internet with my mom. I really wanted to do something, but I had no idea what to do.

A year went by and I had completely forgotten about the children in Uganda. One day my friend, Abigail Inszce, mentioned that she had seen the movie in class. She said she and one of our friends, Narcisse Greenway, wanted to help the cause, but were having trouble getting started. After a lot of brainstorming, we thought of a silent auction. We went around and told local restaurants and stores of our idea and asked if they would like to donate items. Teresa, the owner of Pura Vida, a funky world arts shop in Charlotte, North Carolina, was great! She not only provided space for the auction, but gave us the inspiration to persevere. She is awesome and we really appreciated all her help.

After a lot of challenges, including shop owners not believing teens would work for a cause on their own and two postponements, auction day came. We worked on making the room look nice and putting up signs. People began to show up and slowly made their way back to the room where the auction was being held. We had a turn out of more than 60 people. The auction made $800 off the items and over $300 in donations. People we all knew showed up and more. People who had seen our signs and thought it was great that three teens were doing something as big as this showed up.

Even after the auction we got phone calls and letters from people saying they wanted to help. It was a real accomplishment for the three of us. After the auction even more donations came in from people who may have missed the auction or were there and still wanted to give more. It was great how many people showed up and helped us out. We really appreciate every one who became involved. It helped us realize that our actions matter and that we have people who will help us with anything we put our minds to. It was a relief when it was all over, but we're so glad we were able to help so many Ugandan children go to school, live normal lives, and realize there are people out there who want to help them with their situation.