Proceeds from auction to benefit NYM community

By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

The annual New York Mills Lions Club auction fundraiser is set for Saturday, April 11 at the City Hall Ballroom with a social hour and light meal starting at 6 p.m. and a live auction with Perala Bros. Auctioneers at 7 p.m.

Donations, which are being accepted until the date of the auction, range in a variety of items and talents from homemade food, crafts and hand-crafted furniture and much more. With a little bit of everything, there is sure to be something for everyone.

“Seeing the cool projects,” said Latham Hetland, auction organizer of one of the perks of setting everything up. “People are so creative. We have artists, woodworkers, and people with insane talents.”

With spring on its way and several projects in the works for the NY Mills Lions Club for this upcoming year, their annual auction is the main fundraising campaign for all of their community efforts.

“This is our largest fundraiser of the year,” said Hetland. “It’s also a really good community event. It’s a lot of people, we have food there, we have the lion’s bar open, and it’s just really good to see the unique stuff that the lions members come up with. There’s a lot of experiences, and homemade items, food and crafts and benches and planters.” 

“It’s the most important fundraiser of the year for the Lions Club, all of the proceeds go directly back into the community through various projects,” he continued. “We donate a lot of money to the school, food shelf, parks, projects, lots of nonprofits around the area. So it really is what we use to support these projects through the year.”

While helping support local projects of other organizations such as the school and food shelf, the Lions Club has also been working on getting back to funding their own projects to benefit the community. With ideas such as park shelters and other community-building projects on the horizon, the club puts the proceeds to good use each year.

“We’re working on some new ideas,” said Hetland. “If somebody brings us a project we can work on, we’re happy to do what we can with that too.”

One bittersweet part of this year’s auction for Hetland is that it will be his last as the main organizer as he gives up the reigns to his fellow Lions members, Karissa Doyle and Ryan Brasel.

“It’s been going on for 40-some years, so being a part of that even for a short time, I’ve been a part of it for nine years, it’s been super fun,” he said. “I think it’s one of the events where once you’re in the middle of it and you see all of the people that are there and things are happening so fast, it’s a lot of fun. It’s really cool to be a part of an event that provides so much benefit for the community and the Lions Club which benefits the community and just being part of something with this much history.

“Everyone’s invited,” he continued, “The more the merrier!”