Greetings WPES Families!
I would like to extend a sincere thank you to Wendy Traschen, mother to Lindsey Phillips and grandmother to kindergartener Ford Phillips, and her team at Bolger & Battle Communications, who provided inspiration, signage and marketing materials, and many of the fun details of the evening. It was so easy to make this event so entertaining with her and her team’s support.
In terms of auction preparation, I don’t think anyone worked harder than Heidi Grenda, mother to third grader Will Grenda. We can all thank her for working her tail off to help procure the more than $32,000 in auction donations we received this year. This is a wearying job which requires determination and persistence to succeed, and she worked tirelessly. Much appreciation also goes to Lorelei Lane for her procurement contributions!
Joe Turner, our roving magician and auctioneer, was awesome. Thank you, Turner Magic! And the venue was perfect–thank you Color Wheel!
The evening also couldn’t have gone off as well as it did without the help of Badda Bing catering, Marc Brennan’s selfless donation of beer and wine (which he generously re-upped when we started to run out as the event was in progress, and which Larry Holland raced out *twice* to procure without hesitation). Thanks also to Larry for art direction for the evening and solving our electrical crisis!
Many thanks to the IT/Technology team, Chris Sidor, Philip Weidower and Bobbi Kay, for handling all of the online logistics. It made the evening significantly less hectic than it has been in the past.
A huge thanks to Kristen Pastras and Laura Spriggs for coordinating the children’s art projects, which fetched almost $1500! Additionally, so many thanks to the entertainment/raffle peeps–Emily Janke, Caroline Herring and Julia Harris–for organizing raffle sales–more than $2000! Julie Brody, you were essential in communicating all of our auction details–without you, we wouldn’t have had nearly as much participation. Jeremy Rhett, thank you for stepping up as the impromptu announcer!
There are so many others whose help was essential in making this year’s auction a success, it is difficult to name them all. I only know that I am deeply grateful to be a part of a community that so actively supports our school, teachers and students. We all spend so much time here as our children learn and grow from grade to grade. It is so nice to feel everyone come together: these are our kids!
I hope you all had fun–it was definitely a ‘Surreal Good Time’!
With Gratitude,
Andrea Andrade
