Children’s Auction reaches new record, raising $880K for Lakes Region kids

The 44th Greater Lakes Region Children’s Auction raised a record $883,023 this year, smashing everyone’s expectations for future funding to regional nonprofit organizations assisting children in need. 

Pub Mania, “The World’s Greatest Barstool Challenge,” raised a new record of its own — $401,477 — which bolstered the total raised for the Children’s Auction.

Jennifer and Allan Beetle, owners of Patrick’s Pub & Eatery in Gilford, the location of Pub Mania, presented a giant check from the 12-hour fundraiser to Children’s Auction board Chair Douglass Morrissette at The Warren Bailey Studio in Belmont on Friday night, as the auction wrapped up another successful year. 

“Jennifer and I are so proud and honored to be here to present a check, once again, to help the kids and families who need a hand-up,” Allan said.  

Pub Mania is a year-long fundraising effort, which culminates in the final days of the Children’s Auction with a 12-hour-long celebration, games and live music at Patrick’s. Thirty teams, each with their own bar stool at the restaurant, compete to raise money for the auction. Hundreds attend the final event at Patrick’s, and the resulting funds are presented to the auction in the form of a giant check.

This year, the top-raising teams were Belknap Landscape’s “Merry Misfits," Team Gunstock, Governor’s Island Club, Ladies of the Lake, Laconia Country Club, Foster’s Tavern, Winnipesaukee Yacht Club, Holycow! Music Productions, Tagg Team, The Lakers, Cafe Deja Vu, and Patrick’s Kings Corner.

“These teams, together, have raised over $275,000,” Jennifer said Friday night. 

“Pub Mania continues to be such a successful event because of the mission of the Children’s Auction,” Allan said.

Items won from the Children’s Auction were available to pick up at The Warren Bailey Studio in Belmont through Monday and, afterward, at Lakes 101.5 FM at Belknap Marketplace in Belmont. Items that go unclaimed are returned to a storage unit in Belmont, and put up again for bid the next year.

On Friday evening, mere hours from the end of the auction, the wheels remained in motion. Volunteers were working the phone banks, displaying items for the television cameras, and Heather Bishop and Zack Derby made constant announcements for the live stream.

Jenn Kelley, executive director of the Children’s Auction, seemed in three places at once. In a flurry of activity, she danced between locations at The Warren Bailey Studio at Belknap Marketplace, ensuring efforts were going according to plan. Auction volunteers dipped into and out from a space in the back, separated by a cloth partition, where they quickly ate dinner and chatted as time allowed.

Visitors filed into auction headquarters, where volunteer Norm Soucy was waiting to greet them to facilitate their picking up of auction items. As the hour approached 6 p.m., the Beetles, flanked by numerous others, arrived just ahead of the unveiling of the large and coveted Pub Mania check.  

“A lot of effort from a lot of people,” Kelley said Monday. “I could not be more ecstatic about the success of Pub Mania and the success of the auction.”

“It is a community effort.” 

This year, monetary donations and several fundraising matching efforts raised about $50,000 alone, a new avenue for giving for the Children’s Auction. 

“This year, there were a lot more straight donations,” Morrissette said Monday.

Brie Stephens of Lake Life Realty and John Stephens of Stephens Landscaping created a “Match the Mission” fundraiser, and each pledged to contribute $10,000, if matched by community donations. That effort garnered almost $40,000.

M/S Mount Washington Capt. Paul “Smitty” Smith, in his own right, created the Warren Bailey Giving Legacy, and asked the community to match a $5,000 donation — and match they did. Those efforts alone gave the auction a huge boost this year, one they hadn’t gotten in the past.

“We’ve never had it before,” Kelley said, calling those efforts “beautiful tributes” to the late founder of the Greater Lakes Region Children’s Auction and longtime radio host, Warren Bailey, who died in August.

“There’s nothing like this community,” Kelley said. “The Children’s Auction is such a unique event that really highlights” the community’s generosity.

Following the end of the week-long event, the work is ongoing. On Friday night, volunteers worked to take down decorations, and the studio itself was disassembled the next day.

Now, a distribution committee comprising nine volunteers will read every page of each of the 82 grant applications and, on March 6, recognize the nonprofits awarded at Laconia Country Club. Representatives from receiving organizations will leave with checks from the Children’s Auction.

“It just fills my heart to make a difference in other people’s lives,” Kelley said. 

Looking to next year, Morrissette said the mission of the Children’s Auction will remain top of mind and their goal will, too: “always raise $1 more.”

This year, they certainly achieved that — in raising over $880,000 this year, they blew their previous record of $763,344 out of the water, set just last year.

“Everything that we raised this year is absolutely amazing,” Morrissette said. “We definitely made Warren [Bailey] proud.

“It’s truly amazing how everyone came together.”