By Sandi Gedeon, Associate Director of Finance and Operations
Well, this year has certainly been unforgettable. The Bing Harvest Moon Auction, originally planned for November 2020, was postponed due to COVID-19. Instead, we decided to try our first-ever Virtual Harvest Moon Live Auction, which was held on Saturday, March 13, 2021.
Our theme, A New Hope, derived from the Star Wars theme, tied in pandemic-related struggles. Our invitations contained the following message: “A New Hope is on the horizon. Citizens of the galaxy are held hostage in their homes, anxiously awaiting a cure. However, brave families of Bing Nursery School are banding together. These heroes smuggle donations to the Scholarship Fund for Bing Nursery School, located on the paradise planet of Stanford. Soon, freedom and good health will be restored to the galaxy.”
Given the many struggles resulting from the pandemic, donations were a bit low—about 325—compared with about 500 in a normal year. Many businesses had closed or were struggling. Our team of creative parent volunteers offered free or discounted advertising for affected businesses and partnered with those that focus on children’s health for donations and advertising opportunities. Donations included gifts from businesses, Bing teachers and current students’ families and included virtual—and hopefully in-person—parties hosted by our Bing parents and teachers, including a virtual robot-making party, a gourmet Indian dinner with wine pairings, a stomp rocket party, Champagne-tasting with Moet Hennessy, child/parent yoga class with teacher Lindsay Damiano, California pinot noir tasting, dinner with Bing Director Jennifer Winters and many more. The ever-popular class baskets were again a big hit, with over 25 beautiful baskets created by each classroom.
We auctioned many of our donated auction items on BiddingforGood.com, raising more than $88,000.
On March 13, 2021, at 8:00 p.m., our virtual event began via Facebook Live. More than 300 participants were logged on to bid on items, including a signed Stephen Curry jersey; a children’s outdoor hand-washing station handmade by Bing’s carpenter, Gene Aiken; a picnic with teacher Nandini Bhattacharjya; a Squaw Valley getaway; and another opportunity for dinner with Director Winters. The bidding was fierce for many of the items; we raised more than $68,000 on the live auction items. The ever-popular Fund a Scholarship, a live bidding item with direct cash donations supporting the Bing Scholarship Fund, raised more than $50,000 that evening, in addition to the $182,000 raised prior to the event. As in past years, Helen and Peter Bing were major benefactors, with an initial generous gift of $50,000. All in all, the auction raised more than $395,000, and because overhead was low, we cleared more than $375,000 for the Bing Scholarship Fund.
Teacher Todd Erickson was the MC and auctioneer for the live event and as always, did an incredible job keeping the audience enthusiastic and bidding up items! We can’t thank him enough for all his effort. We would also like to thank the talented Skot Walker, who created and designed the graphics for the auction; teacher Mischa Rosenberg, who put together the auction catalog; teacher and research coordinator Chia-wa Yeh, for filming children’s play for a video shown at the event; teacher Mark Mabry, who was instrumental in helping us get the live auction up and running; and Amir Khostavan of eSocial Multimedia Solutions for his expertise and guidance in providing production support for our virtual live auction. And of course, we couldn’t have had a successful event without the leadership and tireless effort and support of our wonderful parent chairs, Sonia Chang, Judith Duval, Stephanie Holson and Siddhartha Singh. Thank you!
We would like to extend our deepest appreciation to all the Bing parents, teachers and staff for making this first-ever virtual auction a tremendous success.