JOHN DAY — Every year, on the first Friday of December, the John Day Elks Lodge is transformed into a holiday wonderland for the Carrie Young Memorial Dinner and Auction. 

The event has become a major social occasion as well as a charitable dynamo, raising tens of thousands of dollars to buy Christmas presents and basic necessities for Grant County’s most vulnerable elders.

The spaghetti dinner is fun and the live auction is exciting, but perhaps the biggest key to the event’s fundraising success is the fabulous array of glittering gift baskets that go up for silent auction. Each one is carefully curated and lavishly decorated, and the overall effect of seeing them all on display at once — there were 156 baskets this year — is visually stunning.

While it takes dozens of volunteers to put together the Carrie Young Memorial Dinner and Auction every year, event organizer Lucie Immoos credits the undeniable appeal of the gift baskets primarily to the talents of one woman: Teri Bowden.

“She takes everything we’ve put together and she makes it beautiful,” Immoos said. 

“She’s just crafty that way. She’s got an eye for it.”

Bowden, the owner of A Flower Shop and More in John Day, can’t remember for sure when she first started volunteering with the Carrie Young Memorial.

“It’s got to be going on 10 or 12 years now,” she said. “It’s a blur.”

Bowden first started making gift baskets for sale at her flower shop, where they’ve made a successful addition to her product line.

But it’s during the annual Carrie Young auction where her design skills really shine.

The process works like this: Sometime before Thanksgiving, purchased and donated gift items that have been stored in a large shipping container at Immoos’ house are transferred to the American Legion Hall in John Day.

Volunteers sort items into batches around coherent themes — frequent combinations include tools, barbecue supplies or hunting gear for men, and kitchenware, bath supplies, cooking and baking goods or home decor items for women — then put them in baskets or other containers and place them on Bowden’s workbench.

That’s when they have to pass Bowden’s first test: Nothing can be broken, dirty or used.

“Sometimes,” Immoos said, “she’ll put up her hand and say, ‘Denied!'”

More often, though, Bowden will take each basket that comes her way and begin to work her magic. 

“I’ll start putting everything where I think it looks good, maybe add some stuff,” she said. “I’m really big on it flowing well.”

Oftentimes she’ll start by putting wadded-up paper in the bottom of the basket, then covering that with an artfully arranged blanket to form a base for the gift items. Then she’ll put the tallest items in the back of the basket with smaller ones up front, so everything shows to best advantage, and top it all off with decorative touches and festive strings of Christmas lights. 

“I want everything to look high-end,” she said. “I want you, if you win this basket, to say, ‘My gosh, this looks amazing!'”

And it does, every time.

How does she do it? Bowden has a hard time putting her special skill set into words.

“Some people can do math in their heads — I can see where everything ought to go,” she said.

“It’s like Jenga in my brain. It’s just this weird, useless talent until Carrie Young time.”

Gathering all of the items that go into a truly fabulous gift basket is no small task — in fact, it’s a year-round endeavor.

“I start shopping the day after Christmas, ” Immoos said. “I know Teri does, too.”

They also get help from other hardcore Carrie Young volunteers, particularly Stacy Fenton of Burns and Sharrie Slinkard of John Day, Immoos said.

“We’ve always got our eye out,” she added. “If I see something that can go in a basket, I get it.”

While the women often make purchases out of their own pockets, they can usually be reimbursed from the Carrie Young Memorial Foundation.

“It takes money to make money,” Immoos said. “That’s one thing I’ve found.” 

Founded in 1993 to honor the memory of Immoos’ sister Carrie Young, who died in a car accident at the age of 32, the family started out by buying modest presents for residents of the Blue Mountain Care Center, carrying on a tradition Young began when she worked at the Prairie City nursing home. 

The event has grown steadily over the years.

In 2022, the Carrie Young Memorial Dinner and Auction set a record, raising more than $88,000 for the cause throughout the year. Last year’s campaign nearly matched that amount, falling short by a mere $74.

And it has expanded well beyond its original mission of providing Christmas cheer to nursing home residents. 

So far this year, Immoos said, the foundation has delivered 45 loads of firewood to seniors in the community, as well as providing heating oil, financing trips for out-of-town medical care and supplying humidifiers to vulnerable elders during wildfire season. It even helped one gentleman get a new set of false teeth.

“It’s just been nice to be able to not just help at Christmas — because that’s what it was when it started — but also to be able to help all year long,” Immoos said. 

The 2024 Carrie Young Memorial Dinner and Auction included a special note of thanks to Dorman Gregory, read by auctioneer Jake Taylor.

Gregory, a Canyon City resident, died Nov. 26 at the age of 82. 

Immoos said she had known Gregory since she was in high school (he refereed basketball games) and worked with him at the Forest Service until his retirement.

Gregory was also the Carrie Young Memorial Auction’s very first supporter. When the event was just getting off the ground, Immoos recalled, she approached Gregory and some of his coworkers in the Bear Valley fire management division and explained what she had in mind.

“Dorman said, ‘I think it sounds great, kid — here’s your first 50 bucks,'” Immoos recalled. “And he handed me 50 dollars. I’ll never forget that.”