What’s the going rate for Forest Practices Branch staff? Try $1,025 an hour.

That’s how much they raised in their December 15 auction to help the Blue Carrot Café’s annual Christmas Children’s Fund.

The Blue Carrot, in Victoria’s Bastion Square, and the FPB have a long history together. When the branch’s office was in Bastion Square, the Carrot was the staff’s favourite java spot. Then the branch moved to Pandora Street, the Blue Carrot moved to Nanaimo and the link was broken for a couple of years.

When the Blue Carrot returned to Bastion Square in 1999, FPB staff started frequenting their favourite haunt again. For Christmas 1999 the branch raised $500 through a week-long silent auction for the Blue Carrot’s Christmas Children’s Fund. For Christmas 2000, the branch’s Tania Johnson, Dawna Biffert and Monty Vanden Bulck helped Santa organize a potluck lunch and in-branch auction—and they doubled the amount of money raised the previous year in a fraction of the time.

"With knocking knees and a frog in my throat, I victoriously stood up in front of the crowd and yelled at them to ‘show me the money,’" Tania said.

She auctioned off 29 items, including sailing trips, motorcycle lunches, gift baskets and hand-crafted vases and managed to raise $1,025 in an hour!

In talking with families in need, Rick and Pat, owners of the Blue Carrot, discovered that the hardest time was after Christmas—once charity ran out. Therefore, this year the Blue Carrot Café will be hosting its Christmas dinner and giving out warm sweaters in January. Half of the FPB’s money will go to the dinner and half will help a single mother of two.

FPB staff also profited: "We had a wonderful time," Tania said.