An abundance of auction items to please any taste and a steak dinner cooked to taste, will highlight the annual Bid & Bite Auction to benefit Sacred Heart Catholic School.
The event will begin with a silent auction starting at 5 p.m. Saturday at Parish Hall, next to the church at 101 Cottonwood St.
Serving from the buffet will be from 5:45 to 7:15 p.m. Bruff’s Bar and Grill will cater the food, which will include a steak cooked medium or medium well, a baked potato, green beans, roll and dessert for $20 per ticket. The ticket is for one time through the buffet line.
The live auction will start at 8:30 p.m.
Tickets are available at the Sacred Heart School, Muckenthaler’s and Ek Real Estate.
An open bar is included at the event, and those who attend must be 21 or older.
Chuck and Heidi Maggard of Cottonwood Falls will auction the items and music will be provided during the evening by Eric Martin, a guitar instructor at Flint Hills Music.
The auction will feature a bracelet made by the late Don Glaser, whose hand-crafted bracelets and other intricately made items have been sought-after at benefit auctions across the city.
One of Glaser’s last bracelets that was auctioned off at a previous Bid & Bite has been donated back to the auction by its owner, Clarine Knapp. Event chairman Mandy McManaman said that people approached Knapp when she wore the engraved bracelet to ask if it had been made by Glaser.
“I know that that’s a pretty sought-after item,” said Mandy McManaman, event chairman.
The auction also will include tickets to this year’s sold-out Symphony in the Flint Hills, a Mexican dinner for 24 prepared by Marisa Treto, and sports memorabilia.
“We have tons of local and out-of-town sporting events, to Renaissance festivals, to (celebration) days in Abilene and Salina,” she said.
Other items on the auction bill include a birthday party for 12 children, a tasting party for up to 30 people, a Japanese dinner for four, singing and acting lessons, tickets to Emporia State University’s Summer Theatre performances, Smoky Hill River Festival buttons, limousine service for eight, a one-hour massage, Mary Kay cosmetics, a month of gymnastics lessons, two Clint Bowyer collection cards plaques, a “cake of the month” beginning in May, gym memberships, a motel stay in a deluxe guestroom, an afghan with Luke 2:11 woven in, a beef quarter and processing, a Franklin Mint Jackie Kennedy doll, five free skating passes, two lower-level tickets to see Sugarland with Billy Currington at the Sprint Center in Kansas City, hair care for one family for a year, radio advertising, and a rosary blessed by Our Lady of Medjugore during an apparition in Medjugorje. A host of other items also are available.
The auction is one of two major fundraising events held annually by members and friends of Sacred Heart to help with tuition assistance and daily operations of the school.
“Every Sacred Heart family helps in some form or another, whether it be getting out there hitting the streets getting auction items to actually more of the planning and preparation for the auction itself,” McManaman said.