We have our students help out. We solicit about 300 businesses/people and we have about 300 students. The chairperson has a standard solicitation letter and children in grades K - 1 just sign (print) their names. In grades 2 and 3 they write part of the letter and in 4th and 5th they have to write the whole letter.
If the kids have a parent who typically donates (someone that sells Tupperware, Pampered Chef, etc.) they end up writing their own parent.
Our chair crosses off businesses/people if they don't continue to donate and tries to add fresh ones each year. I think we end up with about 100 items ranging in price from a couple of dollars to a couple of hundred in dollars. It's a big job and very much in need of a committee because the first step is letter writing, then you have to catalog the items when they come in and assign a value to them, they have to be stored somewhere and then the day of the auction they have to be set out. You also have to assign auction numbers which means registering every family who wants to participate, then you have to make sure that pencils are put down when time is called (always interesting!) and finally collect the money and put away what's not taken away. oh, and then round up the stragglers who don't get the stuff they bid on.
No wonder our silent auction chairperson stepped down! good luck! [img]smile.gif[/img]
Our Silent Auction is being held in May and I need to contact a variety of businesses fast. I have noticed that many poeple have requested a list, but I am not sure if such a list still exists. If it does, I would be thrilled to get one.
Also, any ideas of making this run smoothly would be great. I haven't done this before and I have no helpers for the Auction.
