Work starts early for annual playhouse auction
Advance work has started on a project that’s one of the biggest fundraisers of the year for a Niagara children’s agency.
The fifth annual Playhouse Build and Auction won’t happen until Sunday, April 28, but Niagara College students are getting a head start by cutting and preparing materials for the big day.
It’s an important event for the Kristen French Child Advocacy Centre Niagara, which helps children and families impacted by child abuse.
These are no ordinary playhouses — previous entries have been modelled on tents, jungle gyms and Old West-style structures.
The designs “continue to amaze the public,” said Susanne McCarroll, resource development co-ordinator at the Kristen French centre.
Here’s how it works: five teams of college students, each led by a member from the Niagara Home Builders Association, will start assembling their designs at 10 a.m. Sunday in the parking lot of The Pen Centre in St. Catharines.
The public can watch and bidding starts at 3:30 p.m.
Based on previous years, the day could raise more than $25,000 for the agency by the time all the buildings are sold.
Home delivery of the playhouses is provided to the winners, within Niagara.
As well, they’ll be judged by members of the centre’s new youth advisory council and certificates will be awarded to the top build teams.
Bidding starts at $300. Over the first four years of the auction, the highest bid registered was $7,000, but McCarroll said “we usually hope the bids will be in the $900 to $1,500 range.”
She added: “If you went to Toys R Us or another store, you’d be looking at spending from $900 to maybe $1,200 on a playhouse” of that size.
The Kristen French centre, on Forster Street in St. Catharines, offers a safe, nonthreatening place for children and youths to talk about their experiences of abuse with investigators and trained staff from Niagara Regional Police and Family and Children’s Services Niagara. Last year, it helped more than 325 children from across Niagara.
The playhouse auction is done in partnership with Niagara Home Builders Association, and there will be live entertainment and food trucks on site.
For more information, phone the centre at 905-937-5435, go to Kristen-Frenchcacn. org or visit the centre’s Facebook page.