My Yellow Balloon Live! Silent Auction

For 39 years, Kara has delivered hope and healing to those suffering personal loss and grief in the Bay Area. On Saturday afternoon, May 16th, we are hosting our annual fundraiser, My Yellow Balloon Live! with a special guest presentation by Tiffany Papageorge, celebrated children's book author of My Yellow Balloon. The event will be held at the Mitchell Park Community Center in Palo Alto.

This fundraiser helps sustain the critical grief support services that Kara provides to children and adults, families, schools, and businesses in our community. Serving 4,600 individuals with support and education in one year is a significant accomplishment. Kara expertly screens, trains and supports all of its volunteers and staff that provide this critical community service. The service highlights of 2014 include serving 4,635 clients, 62 community organizations, providing 19,300 hours of grief services, and over 200 volunteers donating 11,600 hours. Your participation and support of our event will help us to continue to provide our crucial services to those in need in 2015.

Empathy. Compassion. Understanding. Patience. Turst. Care. Mindfulness.

Kara's mission is to provide grief support to children, teens, families and adults. Our vision is to see people of all ages compassionately supported on their journey through grief so they can move toward renewed hope and meaning.

As a nonprofit organization serving the San Francisco Bay Area since 1976, Kara provides comprehensive grief support, crisis response and education to individuals and communities facing the difficult realities of death and dying. Serving more than 4,600 individuals last year, Kara provides a wide breadth of grief support and education services to the community including individual and group peer support; in-house psychotherapy; on-site crisis intervention; bereavement education and training services; Camp Erin, a bereavement camp for children 6-17 years old; and community events. The thousands of people we serve every year describe the value we bring to our community:

“It will be an experience I will never forget. I hope anyone who lost someone can come here and be able to leave with the feeling that it gets better, and that people do understand.” – Youth Client

“Is Kara beneficial? A million times yes. Quintessential in my ability to get through the toughest time in my life.”– Adult Client

At Kara, we recognize both the universality and the uniqueness of each person’s grieving experience. Our services are provided primarily by trained volunteers with experience in healing from personal loss. Our guiding value is empathy and our vision is to see people of all ages compassionately supported on their journey through grief.

Welcome to the Online Catalog for our 2015 Spring Fundraiser, My Yellow Balloon Live! Here, you will find all of our Silent Auction items and have the chance to bid early before the event! Once online bidding ends, we'll carry it forward to our live event on May 16th. Make sure to check back often on your items! We've got some great gifts this year that we know you'll love!

When the online auction ends, all leading bidders will be notified via email. At the live event, we'll have the silent auction up and running from 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm. If you are the lucky winner for any of the items, you will also be notified via email and can pick up your items at the event. If you cannot make the event, we can arrange a time for you to pick up your item at the Kara house.

Thank you for your support of Kara! Good luck and happy bidding!