Susie Anderson
Staff Writer
The Alumni Association of the CLSC Silent Auction is on track to beat last year’s fundraising sales of $14,000 in scholarships for local teachers and librarians.
The auction ran from Tuesday through Friday this week and will be open again from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday on the first floor of the Literary Arts Center at Alumni Hall.
Carol Benroth is one of three co-chairs of the Silent Auction alongside Caroline Young and Carol Collins — otherwise known as “the Three Cs.”
Dividing up the work of connecting with scholarship winners, soliciting merchants for donations, organizing paperwork and setting prices, “the Three Cs” work to make the auction a success.
A former teacher herself, Benroth cares deeply for the cause of raising money for local educators and librarians to experience Chautauqua. The scholarship provides recipients with a gate pass, a spot in a Writers’ Center class and a membership to the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle.
The doors opened at noon on Tuesday to eager crowds ready to browse the items donated by Chautauquans and local community members.
“This morning, some people had a meeting in the ballroom of the Literary Arts building. They were all late to it since they’d stopped to shop,” Benroth said.
The Alumni Association held a preview night on July 2 to display some of the most coveted Chautauqua-related items in the collection. This year, that included a carved wood painting by the late artist Maritza Morgan, titled “Peaceable Kingdom.” Morgan was an artist-in-residence at Chautauqua, volunteer at the Chautauqua Fire Department and associate editor at The Chautauquan Daily before she passed in 1997.
“Long-time people, who have known about Maritza Morgan’s work, know it’s irreplaceable,” Benroth said. According to Benroth, “Peaceable Kingdom” was commissioned in the eighties and donated by a Chautauqua family.
The painting sold during preview night for $8,000.
Other coveted items available at the auction include a 20-piece set of historic Bird, Tree & Garden Club dinner plates and dessert plates and a complete Chautauqua Desk, rivaled only by a desk that now lives in the archives.
“One of the CLSC members bought (the desk) on preview night and donated it to Pioneer Hall. That was really special to us,” Benroth said.
With the purchase of the Morgan painting alone, this year’s Silent Auction is already more than halfway to meeting the 2024 sales total — all before the official week of browsing, bidding and buying began.
“I think we are going to meet it or beat it,” Benroth said.
