You know all those Chinese Auctions you always see hosted by Oorah or other places? Well, did you ever think about how exactly they get all those great prizes? Who donates those flat-screen TVs, tickets to Israel or diamond necklaces?

Well, every organization has their contacts and people who owe them favors. But they also have the people like me who cold-call any number of organizations in an effort to get them to donate prizes for free PR (we are, after all, going to reach an audience of over 100,000 people). This trade often doesn't work because the companies are too small for that to really matter and advertising in their local Jewish newspaper provides them with enough business to keep them happy.

I, on the other hand, remain glued to the phone, excitedly informing people of all the reasons that they want to give us free things.

Something really nice happened today, though. One woman whom I called to discuss car-leasing options told me that she personally couldn't donate free leases but she could donate her time by calling dealerships for us and trying to see whether they would want to help us out. I thought that was really generous of her. So huzzah for this kind lady!

And now I return to making phone calls.