MHLS - Teen Auction Programs

Teen Auction Program Ideas

Ideas from the YAAC listserv

One librarian designed his own Book Bucks and photocopied them. He approached local merchants for prizes - a pet store even donated a purebred labrador retriever puppy. Other prizes included CDs, boom boxes, store certificates, etc .I had a much smaller scale Book Bucks program, because I wasn't allowed to approach merchants for donations and the Friends group refused to help with any funds. I designed Book Bucks using our SRP logo. My fellow YA librarian and I dipped into our own pockets and ordered fun stuff from Oriental Trading Company. I also saved my promotional $5 certificates from Walden Books and turned them into gift cards, made jewelry, haunted dollar sales, and got a few donations of trading card packs from my local comics shop. I was buying boxes of trading cards from Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5 and putting together extra sets of the cards. I also put in any gift books I received from publishers.
Teens in my program received a Book Buck for reading their first book, and more Book Bucks for each 5-book reading log turned in. Even reluctant readers were turning in more than one reading log (I would allow two magazines per reading log if my memory serves me correctly). I had a bunch of small items for 1 or 2 Book Bucks (gliding eyeballs were a hit with the younger teens). Even with just a bunch of smaller prizes, it was a huge hit with the teens, and I had the 5th and 6th graders begging me to let them into the program. Among my SRP participants were several Title I program kids - they were considered nonreaders. Hah! They loved the program, and most of them managed to complete 2-4 reading logs in 8 weeks. Of course, they were reading lots of Goosebumps and that sort of stuff, but they were reading and loving it. The teachers got a big kick out of seeing their students swarming around my desk when they visited once a week. So did my staff and I.
Norm's auction was a huge success, with teens reading tons of books in order to get their Book Bucks, especially once they saw the kinds of stuff that would be in the auction. I believe a family of 2 or 3 teens pooled their Book Bucks in order to bid on the puppy - parents had to sign a permission slip for anyone who intended to bid on the dog.
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Could always get your teens geared up for an early summer "garage sale" of donated items from themselves and neighbors, proceeds then used to purchase gift cards and items. If you start earlier in the year, you could get your group to send letters to celebrities for donated items for your end of auction and let the kids earn bucks through reading. Can use a picture of your library as the center part of the "bill" and add appropriate phrases around the edges.
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We used a "book buck" like program and an auction at the end of the summer for donated prizes; dinners, movies, etc. This year the TAB suggested Instead of individual "book bucks" (which they claimed not to be able to keep up with), using tally sheets of some sort.

One warning about a silent auction: (I was a neophyte in that arena) Allow challenges at the end. I set a time limit of one hour and at the end of that hour, I allowed anyone to reallocate their funds. Some of the kids were waiting until the last second to put their bid down (this is what they see adults do at silent auctions), thus not allowing someone with an equal number of funds to have the opportunity to challenge that bid. The variety of prizes encouraged more participation within the community and certainly encouraged more reading. I give credit for lots of stuff; magazines, movies based on books, participation in teen programs, volunteering, numbers of pages, etc.
Warning:
Limo Ride (one of the prizes) Donating company required the winner to tip the driver. ($50.00 - $70.00) The tip may have been too much for some families to afford. My ignorance, since the only place I had arranged limos for my girls was in England where the prices are similar to the tips here.)
The TAB will be repeating the silent auction this year and are very excited to be doing it again! They want me to find a portable DVD player or MP3 player - I may have to cough up the funds from my budget somehow???? I can't disappoint - they work too hard!
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I've done an auction at the end of the SRP for the last 3 years. One year I did a drawing instead, and I had less participation and some kids didn't even bother to come pick up their prizes. So I went back to the auction. I get 30-50 prizes, ranging from tickets to theme parks to movie passes to T-shirts to books to autographed celebrity miscellanea. Each year the prizes vary a little by what I can collect. By far, the most popular item has been the $50-60 gift cert to a local mall. Rules: Each teen can earn a "book buck" for reading five hours, attending ANY library program, and writing/ turning in 5 book reviews (usually I provide a form to go with that). I took my master from an old Copycat magazine that had play Bunny Money (a section on Rosemary Wells' book). I changed the center of the bill to a book icon and kept the rest of it the same. So each bill is worth $5. They collect their money as they earn it throughout the 8 week program. They keep track of their time on blank calendars, and when they come in for their money we stamp the sheets. If they misplace or lose any money, too bad. The more they collect (i.e. read), the more they'll have to use at the auction. If they can't be at the auction, they can appoint a proxy to bid for them. Because of this I put out the list of prizes a week before the auction. At the auction, so to be fair to everyone, each bidder can only get one prize. It does give the kid with the most money the advantage, but that's the point of them earning the money. I give them a list of the items, and tell them to make their selections carefully. Usually they rank the things they want so if they miss the first item, they'll have a second to bid for. I warn them that all final bids are FINAL. If they want to swap prizes later, that's their business. Usually, we have enough stuff to go through the whole room, so everyone will get something. But also I collect little stuff, like key chains, if anyone didn't get a prize. As far as programs go, it's fairly easy. Once the auction is over, at least
I don't anything left to clean up. A swarm of locusts leaves more behind. I've found that most kids once they understand the rules, are okay with not getting exactly what they'd planned on getting. It's been a good learning opportunity for some because they realized that if they'd read a little more during the program, they would have had enough money to get exactly what they'd liked. And they come back the next year with more enthusiasm. As I said, I've tried other types of programs, but this seems to work best for us. I solicit money from local businesses, and that's what I use for the majority of the big prizes. Oh, I also learned to just get the gift cards from the stores. My first year
I tried to choose the exact prizes (posters, knick knacks, & whatever) and I was really hurt that they didn't like some of my choices. I remembered
loving posters when I was a teen, but I guess they're too sophisticated for that now. Anyway, it's a lot easier on me to shop for gift cards too.
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I also do an auction at the end os my summer reading program. The kids earn book bucks for each book read during the allotted time frame. This year I have added a twist so that the slower readers have a chance to earn as many bucks as the quicker readers. I have a carnival wheel with 6 $1 spaces, 4 $5 spaces and 2 $10 spaces. For every book read, the teen spins the wheel and earns that many bucks. I hold all bucks and reading logs until the day of the auction, eliminating any temptation to make counterfeit bucks. The auction has about 50 prizes, and I make goody bags for every participant of the program. With a free game of bowling, bookmarks, pencils, candy, etc.