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Lucky Duck auctions off skateboard art for local youth

June 2, 2015

By Sara Gottardi

On Saturday, May 21, the new owners of the Lucky Duck tattoo and piercing parlour on 8 Hastings Street North along with the local organization Youth in Action came together to create a new collaborative fundraiser Skateboard Art Silent Auction to raise money for benefits for the community’s youth. The fundraiser creates opportunities by auctioning off local artists painted skateboards and putting youth in contact with the right people as well as bringing a variety of opportunities to the forefront of peoples attention.
The fundraiser helps in assisting youth going through young pregnancies, bullying and counseling through community-funded activities such as dances, movie nights and other community connective activities. A host of different programs and possibilities become available for the youth through fundraisers which help youth get involved and get in contact with people that can help them. Lucky Duck’s donated money to send two youths from Bancroft to attend the Me to We seminar which shares and provides people with an insight to better choices for a better world and better quality of life. Upon coming back they are able to assist other local youth programs through Bancroft with the same mentality learned from the seminar.
Having been a volunteer aand involved in a lot of charity work since moving to Bancroft, Lucky Duck manager Lisa Bickert, says she wanted to make sure that she could offer something to the youth to let them know that they are here to help.
Rebecca Malloy, of Youth in Action, said, “Bill Kilpatrick, the town councillor, introduced Lisa and Youth in Action,” to one another and from there Youth in Action and Bickert have worked together in creating a safe and open place for youth to express themselves as well as creating an innovative fundraiser that helps contribute to the community in a creative way with abundant opportunities that might’ve otherwise not been present. Fifty per cent of all proceeds go back into the artists and towards the youth.
“Advocating for young people and allowing them the opportunity to express themselves through art and also be rewarded for it!” Malloy said, is the biggest and best part of this collaboration. At the auction people’s names remain concealed while on display until the piece is purchased by someone. The point is to buy the art pieces out of true appreciation and not because of a name, Bickert said “I didn’t even buy my own kids works.
The next project will be creating “Square Foot” canvases and is open to whoever would like to come out, participate, and help fundraise. There is no specific medium desired for the square foot canvases, they’re open-ended. Bickert exclaimed ‘someone once made a canvas out of little army men sticking up from the canvas with only the background painted.’
Malloy says, “It’s such a big opportunity and Youth in Action looks forward to more future endeavours with Lisa.”
For more information on Lucky Duck visit their website at: https://luckyducktattoos.ca. And for more information on Youth in Action visit them at: http://www.nhyia.ca/about-us.html.