Charity auction raises $5,000 for Haiti

By Philip Sean Curran, Staff Writer
At South Orange Middle School, pupils are in the midst of a month-long shoe-drive. At a gallery on Ridgewood Road, donated artwork raised more than $5,000 during a charity auction Friday.
Students and staff at Columbia High School spearheaded a communitywide effort to raise $9,155.
In ways big and small, residents of the two towns have been supporting relief efforts in Haiti through donations of their money, clothing and themselves.
Maplewood and South Orange might be far away from that Third-World nation. But the images of the aftereffects of the devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake on Jan. 12 have moved many.
“I just saw the TV, saw the kids and said I wish I could do something,” said Maplewood artist Geralyn Robinson, who organized the auction.
She enlisted the help of 44 artists, mostly from the two arts-friendly towns of South Orange and Maplewood.
“I wanted to help some way,” said Tara O’Leary, an artist from South Orange who donated a framed pastel of an ocean scene.
Cynthia Weiss, a Mountainside resident who is a landscape artist, said Robinson approached her about donating to the auction.
“It’s a wonderful idea,” Weiss said Friday.
Robinson did not have to do a lot of persuading to get the gallery owners to agree to host the auction.
“We said absolutely,” said Micha Hamilton, an owner of GAS Gallery and Studio.

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