| Perrysburg Rotary Club auction committee members Jennifer Fehnrich (from left), Steve Hopkins and Cindy Russeau work to arrange items in the silent auction. |
PERRYSBURG – Record attendance, highest gross receipts, and largest net profit. Those are the results of
the Perrysburg Rotary Club’s 27th annual charity auction.
"Little did we know how foretelling this year’s auction theme would be," according to Rotarian
Steve Hopkins, auction chairman, referring to the "Over the Top" theme of the event. "We
wanted this year’s auction to be the best ever, and we chose the theme to push our members to go beyond
what we normally achieve at this event. I give all the credit to our auction committee and to Auctioneer
Pam Rose, who once again donated her services and the services of her employees to handle our
auction."
Attendance at the auction was 331, up from the expected 250.
"We had a lot of generous guests who bid and purchased items in both the oral and silent
auctions," said Hopkins. Those guests helped the club surpass $90,000 in gross receipts and more
than $68,000 in net receipts. "Normally we’re looking at a gross of $50,000 to $60,000 and a net of
$45,000 to $50,000."
The event was held Feb. 5 at Hilton Garden Inn, at Levis Commons.
The oral auction featured 20 unique items included two $1,500 shopping sprees at the Appliance Center in
Maumee, an autographed National Football League referee’s uniform used in the recent
Baltimore-Pittsburgh playoff game, Lake Erie boating and fishing trips, vacations at warm-weather
condominiums, tickets to Michigan and Ohio State football games, and a tour of the Ohio State House with
Representative Randy Gardner. Six hundred fifty raffle tickets at $20 each were sold with the winner
given the option of taking one of three vacation trips or a $2,500 cash prize.
"We introduced sponsorship opportunities this year," says Hopkins, "and we had several
generous companies step forward to help us out." The Ed Schmidt Automotive Group and Merrill Lynch
were both $2,000 sponsors. Contributing $1,000 each were Edward Jones and Signature Bank.
Proceeds from this year’s auction will be used to continue to fund the Perrysburg Rotary Service
Foundation’s Endowed Scholarship at Owens Community College.
The Rotary Club’s annual charity auction has served as the main vehicle to generate the funds necessary
to support the club’s many projects. Over the past 27 years, the club has used its auction proceeds to
benefit projects such as establishing a 10-year plan and committing $200,000 to the new Perrysburg
Rotary Community Park project on Ft. Meigs Road; providing four $1,000 college scholarships each year to
Perrysburg High School seniors; contributing $10,000 for the construction of Ft. Imagination in Woodland
Park; and purchasing a multi-passenger van for the Perrysburg School district.
Outside of the Perrysburg community, the Rotary Club has contributed nearly $25,000 to help construct the
Deborah House, a home for abused girls in Timisoara, Romania; funded the drilling of 13 water wells in
Vietnam; collected 350 used bicycles for shipment to Guatemalan villages to be used as transportation;
coordinated the delivery of fire trucks and medical equipment to Third World countries; and contributed
$18,000 to the Mensies Center, an orphanage for abused children in Belize.
