Lobsterfest goes ahead with silent auction despite cancellation of event

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on June 24, 2023.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

Cancelling the Lethbridge Rotary Lobsterfest last month was a hard decision to make for committee members, but they are not giving up on their silent auction.

Auction committee member Kimberlee Davis, said the annual fundraising event has been taking place for 18 years, but it had to be cancelled this year because of low tickets sales. She said even though the event was cancelled the silent auction is still going ahead, simply in a different format.

“We had quite a few generous donations for our silent auction, and we generally have a very large silent auction at this event, so we decided we still wanted to make sure we were supporting our cause, which was the Chinook Child and Youth Advocacy Center, and that allowed us to pivot to this online auction and still do a fundraiser on their behalf,” said Davis.

The Chinook Child and Youth Advocacy Center, is a facility dedicated to giving children and youth who have experienced sexual, emotional, and/or physical abuse or severe neglect, a safe space to share their story and receive support.

Davis said it is very important to them to continue with the silent auction, not only to be able to raise the funds going toward the CCYAC, but also because they want to make sure the people who donated the items for the auction can see them being used for such.

“I think that’s just the Rotarian way, we don’t want to see something fail. We are not giving up on the actual event itself, we hope to bring it back next year, but right now we are pivoting, and we keep going.”

Davis said they aim to fill 400 seats at the Lobsterfest every year, which fills the venue at the Sandman Hote. In order to at least break even, they require 250 seats filled.

“That was what we needed to see as far as a charity not losing money, and that was important to us. Obviously, we can’t spend a bunch of money and hope and pray that we make it. We needed to make sure that we at least broke even, and we just weren’t close. We were at just over 120 tickets at the time, and we weren’t confident that we were going to be able to sell the additional amount needed to break even, and that’s why we pivoted to the online model.”

With the support of Kastner Auctions, Rotary has created an online auction utilizing the items donated to the Lobsterfest silent auction.

All of the donated items will be available for viewing at kauctions.ca under the Lethbridge Rotary Lobsterfest auction link. The sale is now open for bids and the auction will close on June 29.

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