COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.--- USA Shooting brought home over $80,000 from the Federation for North American Wild Sheep (FNAWS) Conference in Reno, Nev., last weekend. Approximately, $75,000 of those earnings came from live-auction donations alone.
“We are so excited,” Leaha Wirth, USA Shooting’s Director of Marketing, said. “This is such a great way to start out the Olympic year for our shooters. The generosity demonstrated by the FNAWS members was truly extraordinary.”
The largest single donation was a live-auction bid on a Remington 1100 Classic Trap shotgun—worth roughly $750 retail. By the conclusion of the show, the unembellished, standard shotgun sold for a final impressive auction bid of $65,000.
“First, the idea was to raffle the gun only from our booth,” Wirth said. “But when the winner of our little raffle was announced, he promptly donated it to the FNAWS live-auction to make even more money for the team. From that point on, the bids snow-balled in size.”
The first live-auction bid ended at $4,500. Here again, the winner, Scott Jesseman of Sugar Grove, Ill., donated the shotgun back to FNAWS to raise more money. The next auction winners, John and Ann Diedrich, raised another $5,000 for the team. But once more, they still weren’t satisfied and generously donated the shotgun back to help raise even more money for the Olympic hopefuls. At which point, it was decided to auction the gun a final time at the FNAWS evening gala finale banquet.
During the banquet, the members of FNAWS bigheartedly welcomed the USA Shooting athletes to the main stage along with Leaha Wirth, where they were given the opportunity to speak about their sacrifices and needs for their team. When the final auction began, the bids increased rapidly, ending with Ms. JoAnn Fiedeldey of Cincinnati, Ohio, who would not be topped with her incredible bid of $65,000 for the Remington firearm.
Between the generous bidding at the banquet auction, and the significant contribution from members such as Ron and Marlys Schauer of Coto de Caza, Calif., the team raised more money than it could have ever hoped, and left with a healthy sum of money to train and prepare for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece.
For more information, please contact USA Shooting’s Media Director, Sara Greenlee, at 719-499-4896, or by email at sara.greenlee@usashooting.org
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