Flamingos have community flocking to fund worthy cause

Cookie dough and personalized bricks. Gift wrap, chocolate and calendars. Penny cans and rubber boots.No matter where you turn these days, there's a local fundraiser to pull a few coins or a few dollars out of your pocket. Most of these funding drives are for good causes that promote health, education, public safety, someone in need or community pride.All of which makes the current "flamingo flocking" fundraiser by the Auburn Daybreak Rotary Club so interesting and fun. And provocative.Hopefully, the eight-week event will raise thousands of dollars for much-needed pumps at the Infusion Therapy Center at Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital.Daybreak Rotary Club members should be applauded for their ingenuity in turning a simple set of plastic yard ornaments into serious dollars. The infusion center, made possible through a lead gift of the United Auburn Indian Community, is vital in providing chemotherapy and other blood-based treatments for cancer patients.Is there anything more annoying, or cool, than a pink plastic flamingo? Born in the 1950s and nearly extinct by the 1970s, the plastic flamingo has lived on in wedding decorations, tropical pool parties and fraternity pranks ever since. In the latter, college boys would gather the birds and flock them in a professor's yard. Tacky? Maybe. Memorable? Probably. Colorful? Definitely.With the Rotary fundraiser, anyone who receives a flock of the plastic birds in their yard or at their business should be honored. Not only does someone else think you've got a sense of humor, they also believe you're committed to providing life-saving blood therapy in Auburn. That's pretty cool.Thankfully, Auburn is home to several unique fundraisers that have character. Some, like September's Black & White Ball for the Auburn Chamber of Commerce, have become signature events drawing thousands of people from throughout Northern California. Others, like the 21st annual Celebrity Chefs event put on by the 49er Lions Club on March 1, are more localized but no less important.Around town and around the country, firefighters can been seen asking drivers to open their wallets and "fill the boot" to raise money to help burn victims and other worth while causes. Businesspeople are sequestered in a makeshift "jail cell" and call their friends to "bail" them out for the benefit of the March of Dimes.And once a year, hundreds of locals participate in the 24-hour walk around the driveway circle at the Gold Country Fairgrounds, raising more than $100,000 for the American Cancer Society. Relay for Life, held in 3,400 communities around the world, raises more than $1 billion annually for American Cancer Society.If fundraising was as easy as just asking for dollars, cancer would be cured, poverty would be erased, all children would be educated and the environment would be spotless. But fundraising is a challenge, and sometimes groups need to rise above the din and static to be heard.Good luck, Auburn Daybreak Rotary. Keep flocking until the job is done.