11-year-old Ikea contest winner donates sales to Creative Kids Saskatchewan

Audrey Rogalski stood proudly in Victoria Park on Monday holding up her winning “Sandwich Friends” stuffies.

The 11-year-old’s artwork went from the front of her family’s refrigerator to the shelves of Ikea after her design was selected to be made into a stuffy in the Ikea Soft Toy Drawing competition.

All proceeds from the sale of her stuffies were to go to a charity of her choice. On Monday, the Saskatoon girl donated $6,665.82 from Ikea sales to Creative Kids Saskatchewan.

“Since the money was raised through a drawing competition, I wanted to give the money back to help other children have the opportunity to be creative like I was,” Rogalski said with a smile.

Rogalski’s design was one of five designs chosen worldwide, and 7,000 of her “Sandwich Friends” designs were sold worldwide.

Rogalski’s design is one slice of peanut butter toast holding hands with a slice of jelly toast. Both pieces of toast have a Velcro attachment on their arms to they can hold hands.

“Their names are just Peanut Butter and Jelly,” Rogalski said. “It was just a fun activity during COVID, and I just wanted to make a stuffy that represented friendship and give the world a bit of hope in the dark times of COVID.

“Friendship just makes you happy. If the world did not have friendship or friends, it would be a much darker place.”

Audrey’s mom, Katherine Rogalski, originally found the competition for her kids to do during the beginning of the pandemic.

“Audrey has always been very creative her whole life. She is 11 now but she has always shown an interest in the arts and creativity,” Katherine said.

Katherine received an email from Ikea Edmonton about the drawing contest that both Audrey and her brother participated in.

“Right away she had an idea for it and we drew it up and sent it off, but we never expected any of this to come out of it,” Katherine said. “But we are so proud that it is a full-circle moment that she can give back to other kids in Saskatchewan to pursue their creative interests.”

The members of the Rogalski family were all excited when Audrey’s design was selected out of 66,000 entries worldwide.

“I was kind of shocked at first. I knew there was a lot of kids that entered and I was kind of just like … ‘Whoa,’ ” she said. “I consider myself very lucky.”

(Gillian Massie/980 CJME)

Rogalski’s “Sandwich Friends” drawing was selected from the entries by Ikea Edmonton and then put through an Instagram vote. It was put forward as a Canadian finalist and then went to Ikea’s headquarters in Sweden.

“Every step of the way, we were surprised and quite shocked,” Katherine said of Audrey’s drawing progressing as a finalist in the competition.

Gloria Walsh, the manager of Creative Kids Saskatchewan, said the organization is happy Rogalski decided to support other kids pursuing the arts.

Creative Kids was created in 2010 and helps provide funds to children who wish to participate in the arts in the province. Since its inception, 11,000 kids from more than 240 communities in Saskatchewan have received funding so far.

“We will be using the funds today to be supporting children in Saskatchewan ages four to 19 to support them in their local arts and cultural activities,” Walsh said.

Some of the activities Creative Kids funds are dance, painting, drawing, music lessons, and learning about cultural heritage.

“We also give back to those music teachers and those artists who are sharing their talents with our children,” said Walsh. “So we’re not only supporting those who are most vulnerable in our communities, we’re also supporting our workers that have chosen to remain in the province.”

Rogalski’s favourite mediums of art are watercolour and drawing. She says she still has some big decisions to make for when she grows up.

“I don’t know what I want to be quite yet but I’ve got a lot of life ahead of me to figure it out,” she said. “I know that I want to keep pursuing the arts of some sort.”