Little Sprouts Cookie Walk cancelled, online auction conceived

According to Dorothy Mergelman, member of the Little Sprouts Community Preschool board of directors, the preschool’s annual Cookie Walk and Silent Auction Christmas event has been happening for “at least 20 years.”

This year is the first year they’ve ever had to cancel it.

“It’s always been our big, big fundraiser,” Mergelman said, “and that money is then used to help with scholarships for kids and so on and so forth, and with not having that this year, it’s going to be a big loss.”

The event tends to raise upwards of $2,000 for the nonprofit.

An alternative option has, however, been set up to replace the traditional fundraiser for this year. An online silent auction event will give the preschool a chance to raise some money while doing its part for community safety during uncertain times.

“It will be Dec. 11-18 and there will be baskets for sale and so on, of different kinds,” Mergelman said. “We’ve got a coffee basket, we’ve got a soup basket.” And much more.

“We just wanted to let the community know that it has been canceled, the reason being the COVID situation, but that we will have the online silent auction and there will be more information coming out about that as we get closer, so that is sort of where we’re at,” Mergelman said.

The baskets themselves are being put together by the Little Sprouts board of directors and staff, purely with their own donated materials.

The web page for the online silent auction is already up and ready to go live at 5 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 11, when it will be open to the public for one week.

Anyone wishing to participate in the silent auction can visit lscp.betterworld.org/auctions/little-sprouts-preschool while the auction is open.