Church's eBay Sale Benefits Storm Victims

REDKEY, Ind. - A central Indiana congregation that sold a vacant church on eBay for $40,000 is donating the proceeds to victims of Hurricane Katrina.

The Rev. Randy Davis said he was extremely happy with the outcome of the project.

"If we had tried to sell this building locally, we might have raised between $5,000 and $15,000," he told The Commercial Review of Portland. "The $40,600 figure was beyond are expectations."

Douglas Fleck of Stuart, Fla., who bought the vacant North Meridian United Methodist Church in rural Redkey, 20 miles northeast of Muncie, said he plans to convert it into a summer home.

Fleck, who has been affected by three hurricanes — Frances, Jeanne and Wilma — in the past two years, said he stumbled across the church auction last week while browsing eBay.

"I thought, that's real unique and I could do something with this. When I also saw they were doing it as a benefit for Katrina (victims), that also hit home," Fleck said.

Officials hope to set a closing date and complete the sale in about 30 days, said church member Jeff Miller.

The former North Meridian church building in Redkey has been vacant since late last year when that congregation merged with Main Street United Methodist Church to form Redkey United Methodist Church.

The combined congregations elected to use the larger Main Street Church building, leaving them with an extra building.

Davis said that the church sale ranked for a time as eBay's fourth most popular site.

Once the bidding concluded on the church building, attention focused on the two continuing auctions for the pews in the church.

The 22 modern oak padded pews went for $3,003 to a church in Hagerstown, Davis said.

The 11 antique pine pews sold for $735 to a bidder from Illinois, Miller said.

Davis said that the money raised from the sale of the pews will be kept separate from the money that will be donated to Katrina's victims.

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Information from: The Commercial Review,

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