Lights, camera, auction! Children's auction starts next week

There are lots of ways to feel like Santa Claus during the holiday season, but perhaps nothing epitomizes the Christmas spirit quite like the Greater Lakes Region Children’s Auction, the area’s largest fundraising event, which kicks off next week.

“It goes to over 50 charities that are primarily focused on children,” said Jaimie Sousa of Foundry Financial Group in Laconia, the board chair of this year’s auction. “I like to do my Christmas shopping at the auction.”

And why not?

“We have everything from $15-20 items to vacations that cost thousands of dollars,” she said of the five-day event that raised $539,153 last year. “We have a little bit of everything.”

The auction will be broadcast live from the Belknap Mall in Belmont from Tuesday, Dec. 4, to Saturday, Dec. 8.

Broadcast partners include 104.9 the Hawk, 101.5 WEEI, Atlantic Broadband Channel 12 and Lakes Region Public Access Channel 25. The auction can also be followed at www.ChildrensAuction.com, where people can also place bids. 

“The Auction buzzes with activity as phone bank workers cheer at over-bids, children dance and workers fly around the room,” according to the auction’s website. “Items at the auction range from gift certificates to local businesses, sports collectibles, concert and sport tickets, autographed memorabilia, furniture, vacations, home décor, children's toys, electronics and great holiday gifts.”

The auction runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., and 6-9 p.m., Tuesday though Friday and from 9 a.m. to noon on Saturday.

While the auction itself starts Tuesday, the collection of auction items begins in earnest tomorrow and Monday, when people can drop off their donations at the Belknap Mall location from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Donations tend to pour in at the last minute.

“It does tend to be a struggle to get things in before people actually hear that the auction is happening,” Sousa said.

But once word gets out that the auction is taking place, people tend to show up with donations like it’s the final scene of the Frank Capra film “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Besides gifts, people also donate food and clothing for children, as well as household items that local charities can sometimes struggle to supply for families in need.

"The money goes to different areas, but a lot of it goes to clothes and food and shelter," said Allan Beetle, co-owner of Patrick's Pub and Eatery in Gilford. "It goes where it's needed."

A lot of that need is met because of the annual Pubmania event staged at Patrick's to benefit the Children's Auction.

It was an idea that arose out of a cyclemania event, Beetle recalled in a phone interview, when teams of riders took turns pedalling stationary bikes around the clock at the former Laconia Swim and Fitness Club to raise money for the Children's Auction.

"It was during one of those events we said, 'This concept might work on a barstool.'"

And how, considering that the first event – which raised about $47,000 – happened 10 years and $1.6 million ago.

Starting Thursday, Dec. 6, at 9 a.m., 31 teams of 24 people will occupy a barstool at Patrick's for 24 hours to raise money for the auction, and that fundraising doesn't happen by accident.

"We have a very dedicated group of team captains," said Beetle, who called them "the backbone of this event. They get people to join the teams and inspire others to give."

Some teams raise money year round by holding yard sales and other fundraisers, while other teams come together only weeks before Pubmania but still raise substantial sums.

The event at the Pub features 13 hours of live music, assorted competitions for team members and just plain fun.

"We call it a celebration," said Beetle, "because most of the work is done" by the time team members actually perch themselves on one of the barstools.

Money raised by the auction goes to support a broad range of organizations that provide services to children and families throughout the region.

The reach of the auction is as extensive as the region itself. Sousa, the board chair, estimated that between Pubmania participants and volunteers answering phones, building the set and working the auction floor, more than a thousand people put in countless hours to pull the whole thing off.

And on Saturday, when the auction is wrapping up, Beetle and friends will go to the Belknap Mall and present auction organizers with a check for the money raised by Pubmania – last year's total was more than $300,000.

"That's pretty special," Beetle said of the check passing.

Santa might know just how it feels.