The Rotary Club of Prince Rupert’s annual auction is underway.
The online auction launched yesterday (Nov. 1) and will be open for bidding until Nov. 15.
This is the second year the club has gone with the online format and they are looking forward to 2022 being even better.
“We had a great auction last year,” said Crystal Lorette, auction committee co-chair. “It was our first attempt online, just coming out of COVID. And of course, we didn’t have one during the year 2020. So we were able to raise a substantial amount of money that goes back into the community.”
She noted all of that money, close to $40,000, remained in the community and that so far this year, the 350 items donated to the auction have a retail value of $52,000 and they will continue to accept new items until the end of the bidding.
“I just want to do a big shout-out to all the businesses and friends of Rotary in our community that have come up with some really amazing and generous donations again this year,” Lorette said. “And to all the bidders that come on. It’s fun. You can go in and watch, you can just set your amounts and you can do it on your phone now.”
Bidders can register on the Rotary website and will be taken to the host site operated by the online live auction company Auctria where they can browse the items, enter bids and even set up automatic bidding with a maximum bid option allowing them to set their own budget.
This is a change from last year when it was hosted by Bidding Owl, which Rotary was satisfied with, but the club found Auctria’s administrative fees more to their liking.
“It’s a really nice site,” Lorette said. “It’s got really nice graphics. It’s got all the information and we could build it kind of geared towards us, so, we could customize it a bit. There’s some videos on the history of our rotary club, because we’re over 100 years old now.”
Funds raised through the auction go toward ongoing projects such as Halloween Fest; School District 52’s apple program; upkeep on the Centennial Project (McClymont Park) and Rotary’s waterfront park (whale park); and others.
Organizations in need of funding can also apply to the Rotary Projects Committee for a grant.