On the Queen’s Day (on April 30 or celebrated on April 29¬†if the 30th is Sunday) is a national holiday¬† in the Netherlands, Aruba and the Netherlands Antilles. It started as a celebration of the Dutch monarchy. It is mainly known for the ‘vrijmarkt’ (literally ‘freemarket’), the one day in the year that anyone is allowed to sell anything in the streets. The night before is celebrated as ‘Koninginnenacht’ (queen’s night).

The night before is celebrated as ‘Koninginnenacht’ (Queen’s night). Also this year, the foundation Siva for Kids was taking part to this celebration.

So the volunteers Claire, Claudia, Juliette, Kees and Nathalie took part to the Auction4Kids activity organized by the founder (U.K. Sivanathan) together with Emmanuel Olivier (Market Development) and Domenico La Ferla (P.R.). to inform about S4K charity organization and fundraising mainly for the ongoing projects in South America for the current moment with¬†items, like¬†second hand laptops, books, cd’s, dvd’s,¬†usb-memory sticks, harmonia, football, tennis balls,¬†clothes, shoes etc. etc. which are donated by friends and volunteers of Siva for Kids Foundation. View the gallery of this acitivity. Read the article of Hotdog4Charity of the activity on the Queensday 2006.

The message was clear, a banner “United we help” was behind the stand. The people did not hesitate to buy the items and to donate for charity. For sure the bargain was the funniest part of the auction to haggle the prices, but the good purposes triumphed in the end.

The Music4Kids CD was played during the night (available at the stand with the other S4K merchandising items) and sometimes people stepped by just to have a talk about coming projects. The status of the ongoing projects in South America is almost defined, and the Auction4kids gave another little help to increase the funds needed for these two projects (rebuilding a pre-school and building up a PC room).

Afterwards, the funds raised, the fun, and the nice and friendly atmosphere around Siva4Kids had generated a new creative idea: Auction4Kids all year long. Based on this enthusiastic experience, S4K board invites everybody to partecipate to this charity action just giving some old stuff and second hand items. The items will be available for sale through an ebay account and through our stand4charity will take part in the future to other flea markets in the Netherlands. All the money fundraised will be donated 100% for charity purposes.

If you want to contribute please write an email with subject “secondhand” to¬†info@siva4kids.org