The Late Children’s Author Norman Bridwell Will be Honored at Community Service’s Annual Event
by Nick Macksood
The 37th annual Art Buchwald Possible Dreams Auction, held by Martha’s Vineyard Community Services will bring a certain amount of change. This year’s auction will be in honor of the late Norman Bridwell, a longtime supporter of the auction and the author of the children’s book series Clifford the Big Red Dog.
Liza May, the MVCS Auction Chair, has tried to expand the annual event and make it easier for any and all of the 400 to 500 attendees each year to contribute. As they have been since the auction’s inception, tickets to the event on July 26th remain $25. Jimmy Tingle will return as the auctioneer. And it will be held for the second time at the Winnetu Oceanside Resort in Edgartown. But the auction–and MVCS itself–has evolved greatly in the last 37 years.
MVCS might be most notable for its thrift shop known to locals as “Chicken Alley”, but their services reach across the island and benefit more than 6,000 adults and children in need. Their core programs include Connect to End Violence, Early Childhood programs, disability services, a counseling center, and an island-wide youth collaborative. New to this year is the Red House, a former billing department for the island’s hospital that has been transformed into a crisis prevention center–the island’s only option for short-term substance abuse stabilization.
Of course all that glitters is not gold. And for that, MVCS does its best to accommodate those in need. The island is made up of far more than the super-rich and as the Vineyard tries to encapsulate all of its locals and visitors alike, so too must its events and traditions shift according to the times. May told me “…as the demographics have changed and the attendees have changed, I think the focus of the auction has had to change to reflect that.”
In recent years, a silent auction has been introduced for smaller items featuring an up-island day package with gifts from Menemsha Blues and breakfast at the Outermost Inn, a family night on the town in Oak Bluffs, and other prizes featuring everything from art to fitness to food and drink.
A popular addition last year, the auction will continue its raffle drawing with five different prizes. Raffle tickets are $10 each, or three for $25. The grand prize is an overnight at The Charlotte Inn and dinner at the inn’s restaurant, The Terrace. Other prizes include a variety of gift cards to the island’s favorite restaurants, a jewelry set from Stefanie Wolf designs, a fishing trip for four with Captain Grunty, and two exceptional garden packages donated by Working Earth.
The traditional live auction is not your ordinary auction, however. Rather than buy banal things or signed footballs, MVCS auctions off “Dreams”. Dreams are priceless opportunities that are mostly donated or set-up by local artists or public figures. A few of the big-ticket items this year include a weeklong stay at a castle in Galway; backstage passes and a meet and greet with Seth Myers at a taping of Late Night in New York–you’ll also be outfitted beforehand by local designer Stina Sayre; an exploration in perception and creativity led by Sally Taylor with a dinner provided afterward by chef Jamie Hamlin inspired by the essence of your workshop; a lobster bake and a private home performance with Livingston Taylor; or a private party at The Ritz featuring Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish alongside a selection of craft beer and whiskey.
The brilliance behind auctioning off “dreams” is that they matter very little. Many are literally priceless events led by local celebrities that simply wouldn’t hold clout anywhere else in the country. Nor would mainland America typically have the resources to bid on past prizes such as a prehistoric art expedition through the caves at Lascaux led by a leading archaeologist. As fantastic as that sounds, it just isn’t happening in Lansing, Michigan.
Luckily–and contrary to what 99% of America believes about people with that sort of money–well-to-do Vineyarders give back to their community. $430,000 is a lot of money. And that’s $36,000 less than the year before. Around $10,000 per person if you consider that only around 50 people actually won their prizes. But perhaps most importantly are the steps MVCS has taken to make their annual event even more accessible. I was told that Norman Bridwell used to sit on the front porch of Good Dog Goods and read his stories to any children who wanted to stop and listen. That is just the sort of openness that May and MVCS have taken great steps to include in their annual auction.
