By KALIN KROHE
Panhandle Post
The Alliance Public Schools Foundation is holding their annual auction fundraiser at the Knight Museum and Sandhills Center this week.
Bidding will take place on April 2 at the farmauction.net website.
"Basically, what we do is we go throughout the community, to businesses, individuals, we go through the school system, asking for donations from everyone," Alliance Public Schools Foundation President Tim Garwood said on KCOW radio. "We have an auction, and it's set up as a week-long auction. If you would want to see the items, you'll be able to go down anytime during the week and the items will all be set up the Knight Museum. You can get online; Kraupie's Real Estate will be doing a live auction for us. And if you're not tech savvy, you'll have to find someone that is. It's real easy to place bids, we're going to make things as easy as possible. It's really been a lot of fun because we get such a wide variety of items. We have a number of baskets that the high school clear down to the grade school put together, and they all donate it towards the common cause. Our ultimate goal is to raise funds for scholarship purposes."
The foundation will also be taking monetary donations this week.
"If you don't want to necessarily participate in the auction, you can also come to the museum, there's plenty of envelopes that you can put monetary donations in," APSF Vice President Wendy Fritzler said. "The primary focus of the funds is to make sure that we can fund the scholarships that we get applications for from seniors at the high school and also for Alliance High School graduates as well. So, if they're still in college, there's applications that they can still apply for post educational funds as well."
The scholarship applications are due by April 1. Students can apply for scholarships at the high school, on the foundation Facebook page or at the alliancebulldogs.org website.
"We've had everything from just general scholarships to very specific," Garwood said. "For instance, automotive, animal science or the arts. We even gave one away last year for foreign travel. We try to accommodate anybody and everybody that wants to pursue something in a post graduate setting."
Garwood said he appreciates all the hard work that goes into the auction from local people in the community.
"The one thing I really want to point out is how much we appreciate some of the local people that, let's say have graduated in the past that are donating their talents, whether it be photography, or paintings, or woodworking," Garwood said. "I mean, Archie Lawrence, for instance, has done a tremendous job helping us every year and you ought to see the quality of some of his work. The photography, Chas Lierk; and you've got Jerry Underwood, Kyren Gibson is a tremendous painter; Bob Peltz has donated. Just the number goes on and on. So, we really appreciate all the people that stand up and donate to the cause."