CULLMAN, Ala. – The 47th annual Cullman Rotary Club Auction saw a large crowd Friday evening. The silent and live auction featured items such as desserts, clothing, various household, personal and business goods, artwork, pet products, gift certificates, gift baskets, home landscaping tools, furniture, vacation packages, golf packages, VIP tickets to Rock the South and more. Raffle tickets were sold for a chance to win a $500 cash prize or a 9mm Glock handgun.
The auction was held in Christ Hall at St. John’s Evangelical Protestant Church this year, moving from its traditional location at the Cullman Civic Center, which was sold to Desperation Church a few weeks ago.
The auction is the Rotary Club’s only fundraiser each year, with all money raised going back into the community.
“All the money we make goes back into the community, like organizations, different nonprofits,” said Rotary Club President Will Harding. “Everything we made today goes back into the community.”
Harding expressed his thanks to local businesses.
“We always have really good support from the merchants in town, businesses,” he said. “They’re always very accommodating on donating. They’ve always been very gracious to donate to us. We very much appreciate their support and we couldn’t do it without them.”
He said the club has raised “give or take $50,000 in the past,” and said the total for this year’s event should be available this week.
Harding praised the Wallace State Rotaract Club, the college-level Rotary Club, saying, “They’re doing the food tonight. They’ve been to a lot of our meetings and they’ve really helped us out.”
He shared some ways the Rotary Club supports the community.
“We support various nonprofits and projects in town,” he smiled. “For example, we donated money for the trees at the new playground at Ingle Park; we donated $20,000-plus for trees and shrubs over there. We support like The Link (of Cullman County), United Way (of Cullman County), Childhaven, Good Samaritan Health Clinic. We give Rotary scholarships every year. Really, it’s anything that we deem worthy for the money to go back into. We try to be good steward with donated money, obviously, so we have a board and we decide priorities and decide where we want to put the money back, but everything we make does go back into the community.”
Copyright 2020 Humble Roots, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
