ELCA NEWS SERVICE
February 6, 2006
Lutheran Services in America to Be 'Trading Graces' on eBay
06-017-FI
CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Lutheran Services in America (LSA) will
host "Trading Graces," its first annual online auction, from noon
Feb. 26 to noon March 8 on eBay to benefit Lutheran social
ministry organizations across the United States and Caribbean.
"Congregations and all sorts of people can partner with
Lutheran social ministry organizations on this and spread the
word, donate, volunteer and buy," said Jill Schumann, LSA
president. "We're inviting everybody into this project, and
we're partnering with those 100 million-plus existing eBay users
to reuse, recycle and tell the LSA story," she said.
LSA is an alliance of nearly 300 social ministry
organizations, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)
and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. eBay is a platform on
the World Wide Web where millions of items are traded each day.
Lutheran health and human service organizations in thousands
of communities provide care -- ranging from health care to
disaster response, from services for children and families to
care for the elderly, from adoption to advocacy -- to 6 million
people annually, and employ a quarter of a million staff and
volunteers.
One purpose of Trading Graces is to raise public awareness,
Schumann said. "For a long time we've heard that Lutheran social
ministry is one of the best kept secrets. We've been working
hard to liberate that secret and make sure people know more about
Lutheran social ministry," she said.
Schumann noted that Girl Scout Cookies (registered trademark)
and the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life raise awareness
for their organizations while raising funds for their programs.
She said she hopes Trading Graces will give LSA similar notoriety.
The 10-day auction has been preceded by a year of planning,
Schumann said. The social ministry organizations went "to their
constituents, their employees, their donors, congregations, their
business partners, and asked for items and services to donate,"
she said.
Pre-auction descriptions and photographs of items scheduled
for sale were listed in the "Trading Graces Preview Gallery" on
http://www.lutheranservices.org/ -- the LSA Web site. An LSA
news release listed several items that will be up for auction,
including a classic 1948 DeSoto car, vacations, sports
memorabilia and a collection of more than one million sports
cards.
John B. Carter, LSA's Trading Graces online auction event
manager, said the auction will look familiar to eBay regulars.
"The seller, a Lutheran health and human services nonprofit
organization, places items up for sale to the highest bidder," he
said.
"Buying on eBay can be a unique shopping experience, and
bidders need to register with eBay in order to buy items online.
Registering with eBay requires providing eBay with some very
basic contact information which eBay keeps private on eBay's
secure servers," Carter said. eBay confirms a completed
registration by e-mail.
While the auction is in progress, potential bidders can
access Trading Graces online through the LSA Preview Gallery, by
logging on to eBay at http://www.ebay.com or by searching for
items at http://www.missionfish.org/ by a specific nonprofit
organization's name.
"Bidders can watch items over the course of the event, and
the highest bidder will be notified by eBay that they have won an
item," Carter said.
"Afterward, the buyer and seller have an opportunity to
converse through e-mail to make final arrangements for shipping,"
Carter said. "Following shipment, both the buyer and seller rate
each other on how the transaction was handled via mechanisms set
up in the eBay system," he said.
MissionFish is providing technical support for Trading
Graces. MissionFish has conducted online auctions since 2000 and
teamed up with eBay in 2003 as the exclusive charity solution
provider for eBay Giving Works and as a service of the Points of
Light Foundation.
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a nonprofit financial
services organization based in Minneapolis, helped fund Trading
Graces.
-- -- --
Details on the Trading Graces online auction are at
http://www.lutheranservices.org/TradingGraces.asp on the LSA Web
site.
Information about MissionFish is at
http://www.missionfish.org/ on the Web.
Details about registering and buying on eBay are at
http://www.ebay.com on the Web. Information about eBay is at
http://pages.ebay.com/aboutebay.html on the Web.
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask]
http://www.elca.org/news
ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog
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