{"id":603,"date":"2004-12-09T09:17:25","date_gmt":"2004-12-09T17:17:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2004\/12\/a_bake_sale_on_steroids\/"},"modified":"2004-12-09T09:17:25","modified_gmt":"2004-12-09T17:17:25","slug":"a_bake_sale_on_steroids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/a_bake_sale_on_steroids.php","title":{"rendered":"A bake sale on steroids"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This month, the city of Chicago has been taking the traditional arts auction on-line in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thegreatchicagofiresale.com\/\">The Great Chicago Fire Sale<\/a>, which they claim to be &#8216;the first-ever municipally sponsored eBay charity auction.&#8217; While it&#8217;s an evolutionary idea, rather than revolutionary, it did catch the attention of the UK <i>Guardian<\/i> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/usa\/story\/0,12271,1362585,00.html\">a few weeks back<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\nFunds from the auction are designated to supplement efforts by the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs, specifically in support of the Chicago Cultural Center, cultural grants, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gallery37.org\/\">Gallery 37<\/a>. Items include a 1960s Playboy Bunny outfit, several decommissioned parking meters, arts, crafts, nights on the town, and other experiential goodies.<\/p>\n<p>\nIt&#8217;s an interesting evolution when municipalities enter the fundraising business, beyond the taxing, legislating, and governance elements of their work. I&#8217;m guessing that the local arts organizations in Chicago are of mixed feelings&#8230;happy for the national media, wary of competition from yet another player in the game.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><i><br \/>\nUPDATE: In another odd interchange of city government and charitable support, the city of Boston is allowing people to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boston.com\/news\/local\/massachusetts\/articles\/2004\/12\/09\/this_week_toys_can_pay_off_a_parking_ticket\/\">pay parking tickets with toys<\/a>. For tickets of a certain type issued within a certain time frame, violators just bring in a toy, along with a receipt showing the value matches the fine. The goodies go to Toys for Tots. While it&#8217;s a lovely idea, I&#8217;m wondering if the city office really had authority to forgo city revenue for a specific charitable cause.<br \/>\n<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This month, the city of Chicago has been taking the traditional arts auction on-line in The Great Chicago Fire Sale, which they claim to be &#8216;the first-ever municipally sponsored eBay charity auction.&#8217; While it&#8217;s an evolutionary idea, rather than revolutionary, it did catch the attention of the UK Guardian a few weeks back. Funds from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-603","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}