An opportunity to bid on auction items and bite on steaks, while helping school children, is being offered for the Fifth Annual Western Bid and Bite Auction to benefit Sacred Heart School.
Door prizes, raffles and an optional steak dinner cooked on-site will be held in conjunction with the auction.
The event will be held in Sacred Heart Parish Hall, 102 Cottonwood St. Proceeds will be used to help support the school’s operating costs. Shari Beatty and Anna Ryan are co-chairmen of the event.
Beatty tried to describe the raft of items that will be available to bidders.
“It’s probably easier to tell you what we don’t have,” she said, thinking of the long list of donations.
International dinner parties featuring food from Mexico, Sri Lanka, China and Japan have been donated, as well as a five-course gourmet dinner made by the Rev. Darren Henson, priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church.
“Things like that, you just can’t get anywhere else,” Beatty said.
For people who want to cook their own meals, Pampered Chef and Homemade Gourmet items will be offered.
Auto care services, beauty and fitness packages, fine arts, downtown gift certificates theater and Kansas City symphony tickets also are on the auction list. Some certificates have been packaged into specialty bundles.
“We try to make it into exciting items instead of having just a bunch of single certificates,” Beatty said.
Sports enthusiasts may be interested in tickets to a K.C. T-bones game, packaged with a visit to the Negro League Baseball Museum. Tickets also have been donated for the American Royal and for Wichita Wranglers and Thunder games.
Other sports items include a basketball autographed by the University of Kansas basketball team, a pennant autographed by Dante Hall of the Kansas City Chiefs and a picture signed by Tony Gonzales, Derrick Johnson and Larry Johnson. Paint ball and laser tag tickets from Kansas City also are on the list.
Animal lovers may be interested in tickets to zoos in Wichita, Kansas City, Salina and Omaha. Those who approve a hands-on approach can bid on two female Labrador retrievers — one chocolate, one black — donated by B&S Kennels in Olpe. Beatty said that a parish family picked up the pups about four weeks ago.
“That’s huge,” Beatty said. “They have their shots and they’ll be potty-trained.”
The auction also offers a reclining sofa, a vehicle windshield, a Camp Wood get-away, a Wii video game system, hand-crafted oak wood stepstool, quilts and bicycles for adults and children.
Classes at the school have made items to donate, including a pet-lover’s basket and dog house from the first grade and a quilt made by the combined fifth and sixth grades. Students personalized a garden bench by writing their names on it inside crosses.
Beatty said the number of live auction items should be about 30. A “super-silent auction” with large-ticket items can be bid on until 8:30 and other silent auction items will be outside the parish hall. Waters True Value is setting up a tent to help handle the overflow.
“We have so much stuff we can’t fit it all in the Parish Hall, so we have a tent,” Beatty explained. “Each year, it’s getting better and better.”
Child care at the Kiddie Corral will be available to the first 50 children who enroll. The cost is $15 per child and $5 each for additional children in the same family. The Kiddie Corral will be open from 4:30 to 10:30 p.m., and sign-up can be made in advance at the school.
The silent auction will open at 5 p.m. and an optional steak dinner cooked on-site by Gary Burgess, owner of Bruff’s Bar and Grill. Food will be served between 5:15 and 7:15 p.m. and the live auction will begin at 8 p.m.
Dinners need to be ordered in advance by calling 343-7394. The cost is $20 each.
Raffle prizes include a week’s lodging in Los Cobos, Mexico, a weekend’s lodging in Branson and a year of hair care, color and cuts included, for a family from Clarine Knapp.
Participants must be 21 years or older to attend. To prevent violating state law on selling liquor, an open bar will be available.
“We can’t charge for it, so we have a big donation jar sitting out,” Beatty explained.
Reserved seating can be made by sponsoring a table for eight for $25.