MOSES LAKE — “Everyone across the Basin goes crazy,” said auctioneer Jake Barth, of Chuck Yarbro Auctioneers LLC, into the camera after items were sold.

That’s because the Columbia Basin Cancer Foundation’s donors were spread far and wide Saturday night, as the 12th Annual Country Sweetheart Benefit Auction went virtual for the first time, with Barth as auctioneer.

The benefit is the foundation’s primary fundraiser for its year’s worth of services, said Executive Director Angel Ledesma. It started out as a dinner and dance, as well as a live and silent auction.

According to columbiabasincancerfoundation.org, the foundation provides support, services, encouragement and information to patients and families battling cancer. They identify individual needs through individual interviews and then provide help throughout the process of diagnosis, treatment and recovery, collaborating with groups and agencies to expand the resources for local cancer patients.

The cancer foundation gets 100 new patients a year, and its emotional and financial services cost more than $7,000 a month, Ledesma said.

The auction is “just a way for us to raise the money to continue our good work,” she said. “It just grew and grew and grew and grew.”

Last year, more than 500 attended the event at the Grant County Fairgrounds. This year, like most everything else, it was quite different.

“The changes, there’s so many,” Ledesma said. “We’re walking around kind of just wondering why we’re not decorating.”

It took a village to set up their first-ever virtual auction, she said. The foundation received support and advice from the Boys & Girls Clubs of The Columbia Basin, which held a virtual auction in 2020, and from Chuck Yarbro Auctioneers LLC.

As the auction kicked off, Ledesma and Barth sat in chairs before the camera, sipping red wine and cracking jokes.

Upon introduction, they played clips from Dr. Peter Rutherford and Dr. Douglas Wilson of Confluence Health, who updated the public on ongoing projects, as well as complimented the value of the cancer foundation.

Next came Mike Love, a Moses Lake resident and survivor of prostate cancer. The Columbia Basin Cancer Foundation gave him a support system and a network that was crucial for his recovery, he said.

“You’re not alone,” Love said. “There’s a multitude of people who are going through this at the same time, and because of that, it kind of brings a lot of the stress levels backwards.”

And then the games began, and so did Barth’s classic auctioneer rattling – that rhythmic chant that urges participants to bid.

But a virtual auction is a different kind of game. Folks at home streamed the event on one device, while others used a second device to peruse items and bid.

To “raise the paddle,” streamers clicked the “donate” button when the amounts popped up on the screen. They even called in live to four volunteers on a panel.

Donors bid on all kinds of items, such as goodie baskets, weekend getaways, handcrafted furniture, guide services and more. More than $2,000 was raised, impromptu, just for Barth to get a haircut.

By night’s end, the auction site read $75,023, shy of the goal of $200,000. But call-in donations will proceed, Ledesma said, and are not totaled on the website.

Ledesma expected a decrease in earnings this year.

“When you’re at the auction, the vibe is great,” she said. “Everybody’s having fun; it’s good to see people. They look forward to it year after year after year, a chance to put on your party boots and have a good time, and when you bid against each other face to face, sometimes that increases the challenges and increases your revenue and how much you’re going to make for the auction.”

One good thing about the virtual auction is bidders don’t even have to be in town to participate, she said. Besides the lack of a night out, it gives people more freedom and convenience to bid.

In future years, Ledesma hopes to have the best of both worlds, she said.

Barth provided words of encouragement.

“We are in trying times and weird times, friends, and we’re almost facing new hurdles every day. You’re stepping up, folks, and you’re meeting the challenge, and it’s truly humbling to see this happening,” he said. “Wow, that’s all I can say folks, just wow. But we got a ways to go.”