Five minutes. That’s how long it took residents and Chevron to raise $112,000 toward the city’s schools during the Chevron Challenge portion of Saturday’s 17th Annual Manhattan Wine Auction, benefiting local schools.
More than $605,000 was raised overall at the event, which was held at the Manhattan Beach Country Club and featured live and silent auctions with lots that included a trip to Fashion Week in New York, tickets to a Britney Spears concert, a Father’s Day Dodgers game, and myriad fine pinots, cabernets and Bordeaux. Money was also raised through the sale of 72 tables sold to corporations and families for $5,000 to $20,000 apiece.
“The event was even better than we expected,” said Susan Warshaw, executive director of the Manhattan Beach Education Foundation, the organization that puts on the event and exists solely to raise money toward Manhattan’s schools. “We started earlier to allow the crowd more time to relax and enjoy the food and wine.”
During the Chevron Challenge portion of the auction, a Chevron representative told guests the company would match donations up to $50,000 in honor of its 100th anniversary. In a matter of minutes, guests collectively kicked in $56,000 and so did Chevron.
The top auction bid was $23,000 for a pair of diamond earrings donated by Mary Kelley at the 23rd Street Jewelers in Manhattan Beach. Next was a trip to Peru, which sold for $19,000. After that, a trip to Shanghai sold for $17,000.
More than 1,400 guests attended the auction, which featured music by the John Brown Band and an indoor “Old School Lounge” where guests got cozy while they enjoyed the fruits of 100 wineries and restaurants.
Two thirds of the money raised will go toward teachers’ salaries, small class sizes, librarians in every school in the district, guidance counselors, academic support counselors, a district-wide writing initiative, district-wide music programs, a 21st-century curriculum coordinator, and elementary reading, science and computer specialists, according to Warshaw.
The remaining third of money raised goes into an MBEF endowment fund, the interest of which will be used to help directly fund school programs when the fund balance reaches $10 million.
In addition to the wine auction fundraiser, MBEF makes an annual appeal to parents, which raised $4.6 million earlier this year, including a $360,000 in a grant from a Manhattan Beach-based charitable trust dedicated to education.
Warshaw pointed to the MBEF team for once again meeting its lofty fundraising goals.
“We have an amazing team of volunteers who made this event a success,” she said. ER
