For the past eight years, the Richmond Animal League (RAL) has hosted a silent auction of donated art to raise money for their organization. Anyone can submit a painting or drawing of an animal on a hard 5x5in surface, and this year they have received submissions from schools across the Richmond area and the country. 

With the COVID-19 quarantine moving everything online, the celebration that took place on Feb. 26 was held virtually via a Youtube livestream. The show, which began with a looped video of many of the animals currently up for adoption at Richmond Animal League, included special guest Kat Simons from Mix 98.1, who started the stream by showcasing some of the artwork being auctioned off, as well as a raffle for a necklace from Diamonds Direct and some RAL merchandise.

Of those who submitted, many of whom were Clover Hill students, junior Kayla Waters enjoyed the experience of using art to raise money for a good cause.

“I think the program’s pretty cool,” Waters said. “[The Richmond Animal League] is a pretty good organization.”

Waters donated a piece that depicts a woman with ram’s horns and sheep wool hair on a black background. This woman is holding a lamb with gold lines extending from behind her head, similar to the style of religious pieces portraying important figures from thousands of years ago. Four red candles line the bottom of the work with a lit wick on each one. The religious connotation of the halo inspired Waters to call it ‘Goddess.’

“Sheep are one of my favorite animals. Also, a lot of the time Jesus was depicted as a lamb, so I thought it’d be cool,” Waters said.

Junior Allison Jenkins-Guay also donated art to the Sugar and Spice auction. RAL named their piece “Foxy.”

“Essentially it’s a fox curled in a ball in a field of grass,” Jenkins-Guay said. “Well— it’s not so much grass as green blobs. There are also a few tiny flowers around it, and the fox is sleeping. There’s also a bit of realistic coloring to the fox, too, which I normally never really do but I enjoyed doing it a lot.”

Jenkins-Guay loves foxes because they represent “cat software running on dog hardware.” They chose their favorite animal for this event, which made the piece more meaningful to them.

“I mainly joined for honors points,” Jenkins-Guay said. “I was going to keep this piece, but I wanted to submit it so that the money could go to helping animals, you know, live a better  life.”

Art pieces that are donated by minors have a bid limit of $75, while adult pieces go for up to $300. Jenkins-Guay’s “Foxy” was almost immediately purchased after being presented on RAL’s website.

“Part of me wishes [the piece] could go to the adult level so it could raise even more money for the organization ‘cause I feel like stopping at $75 is— it could be more, I believe,” Jenkins-Guay said.

Thanks to this event, the Richmond Animal League was able to raise more than $74,000 from donations that night, exceeding their goal of $70,000.