The Spirit of eBay's Community:
the eBay Café Quilt
by Maeve
eBay Staff Member

What's warm and colorful and demonstrates the spirit of eBay's community?

The eBay Café Quilt!

From our earliest days, the eBay Cafe has been a gathering place for people from around the globe. It's not unusual to see posters from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Europe, Asia and a myriad of other places stopping in to say hello and to relax with friends.

This last year, the folks in the Cafe embarked on a remarkable project, one that is global in nature and demonstrates how closely the community is tied together. A simple idea to create a quilt to raise funds for charity resulted in a touching response and an extraordinary community story.

*chippie*, one of our Canadian members, spearheaded the project and donated her time and talents to create the Cafe quilt. When we asked *chippie* where her inspiration came from she told us, "I wanted to make another quilt and didn't have an idea for the design.

"So I posted in the Café that I wanted to send out pieces of fabric so that other members could contribute to the quilt. I initially thought it was just another quilt I was making, but it turned out nothing like I imagined."

Over the next few months, members sent six and a half inch square fabric blocks embellished with their User ID and other personal touches. The blocks began arriving from all over the world and by Labor Day 2002, *chippie* had 114 blocks ready to go.

During the time the quilt was coming together, giraffer, another Café regular, was working on a website to show everyone the squares and showcase the creativity of the members. As each new square was added, *chippie* sent scans and giraffer placed them on her web page. Surprisingly, not every square came from a well-known Café poster. Some of the art was mailed in from members who only read the board but who also feel that they are part of the thriving Café community.

The quilt was listed on eBay and scheduled to end on Halloween. Starting at a penny, there were more than 35 bids placed in the first hour, and the listing spiraled up from there.

After a wild week of bidding and nearly 8,000 page views, the listing closed for an amazing $1400.73. The lucky winner was giraffer.

She explains, "I was so impressed with the Café spirit and participation it was important for me to bid. I wanted to make sure that the quilt remained part of the Café. As the final bids came in, an idea started to form in my mind that there must be a way to share this quilt with everyone."

And share they did. giraffer contacted eBay and offered to loan us the quilt so that we could share the spirit of community it had created with others. *chippie* and giraffer joined eBay staff in San Jose for the company's annual meeting, where these two members presented eBay with the quilt. They received a standing ovation from eBay staff. The quilt is now proudly showcased along with other special eBay memorabilia in the Lobby of our corporate headquarters.

The money raised by the listing was donated to the Canadian Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. The funds will enable two children to attend a special camp this summer, with a little left over!

Because of the success of this project, *chippie* has already started asking members to contribute squares for next year's quilt. giraffer is looking at juvenile diabetes programs in the U.S. to find out where profits from the next quilt will go. Both *chippie* and giraffer tell us that they hope to continue this as a tradition in the Café and they have plans to create a quilt for an Australian charity the year after next.

We applaud the efforts of all who supported and helped to create the quilt. If you would like to help build the Café Quilt for next year, please click here.