EPHRATA — “Mystery Masquerade” will be the theme of the 41st annual St. Rose of Lima Catholic School auction Saturday. 

“It’ll be really fun to see what everybody comes as,” said St. Rose Principal Amy Krautscheid. Costumes aren’t required, she added. 

Tickets are still available, Krautscheid said. The event is at the school and will include dinner catered by Enzo’s, a dessert dash, a live auction and a silent auction. The list of auction items hadn’t been finalized at press time, but Krautscheid said there were getaways to Mexico and San Diego already donated. 

A tradition of the auction is to include artworks made by the students. The third-graders are putting up a wooden bench on which the kids have signed their names in cursive with a wood burner. 

“We still learn cursive here in Catholic school,” Krautscheid said. 

There are themed artworks like a heart around a rosary and a paper tear mosaic of the Virgin Mary. The sixth-grade class made a pottery collection that shows the landscape of Jerusalem, Krautscheid said. 

The silent auction items are a little smaller, Krautscheid said, many donated by the parents of students. 

“Parents bring in baskets, like campfire baskets or board game baskets,” she said. “We have one that just showed up that’s a dog basket. It’s a dog bed full of chew toys. They’re just so creative. (The silent auction) makes it fun for people who are really there to have fun.” 

Partway through the event there will be a paddle-raise for the Fr. Seamus Kerr Scholarship Fund, named in honor of a longtime, now retired, pastor at St. Rose of Lima Parish. That money helps kids whose families can’t afford the full tuition to attend. 

“Last year (Kerr) made a goal of $75,000, and they met that,” Krautscheid said. 

The auction is the school’s biggest fundraiser every year. The goal is to keep costs as low as possible, Krautscheid explained. A year’s education at St. Rose costs about $3,000 more per student than the school charges in tuition, and the monies raised at the auction fill that gap. The total raised at last year’s event, including the auction and paddle raise, brought in something like $158,000, she added. 

St. Rose is the Columbia Basin’s only Catholic school and has been in Ephrata since 1959, according to its website. St. Rose has 117 students this year, Krautscheid said, and can accommodate as many as 180 without letting class sizes go above 20 students. 

The servers will be students from St. Rose of Lima Parish’s confirmation class and youth group, Krautscheid said, many of them alumni of the school. 

“It is really a fun evening,” Krautschied said. “It doesn't matter if you have a ton of money or if you just want to come and have dinner and enjoy yourself that night.” 

‘Mystery Masquerade’ 

Nov. 2 

Doors open: 5 p.m. 

Live auction: 7 p.m.
St. Rose of Lima Catholic School
520 Nat Washington Way
Ephrata, WA 98823 

Tickets:  
Individual: $65
Table of eight: $580
Table of 10: $650
www.saintroseschool.org
509-754-4901

    Last year’s St. Rose of Lima Catholic School auction raised about $158,000 to fund Catholic education in the Basin.
  

    Proceeds from a special paddle-raise at the St. Rose of Lima Catholic School auction Saturday will go to a scholarship established by Fr. Seamus Kerr, shown here at last year’s auction.