BBCC Cellarbration! coming March 15
MOSES LAKE — The Big Bend Community College Foundation will give a lot of students a hand up through the 24th annual Cellarbration! March 15. Tickets are still available, said Executive Director Leanne Parton.
“It’s going to be a fabulous event,” Parton said. “Our numbers, as far as students, were ahead of pre-pandemic (enrollment). So, the need is even more because we’ve got more students.”
The event will be held at the ATEC building at BBCC and will feature dinner catered by Michael’s on the Lake, a selection of wines donated by local vintners, a silent auction, a live auction conducted by Chuck Yarbro Auctioneers and something halfway in between that Parton called an ‘almost live” auction.
“You buy raffle tickets, and then you can put them in one of five items’ buckets,” she said. “And then we’ll draw right before the live auction to see who wins them.”
There will be the usual side events as well, Parton said. A popular one is the dessert auction that kicks off the live auction. At last year’s auction, a single carrot cake sold for $10,000.
The wine pull will return this year as well, Parton said, giving participants a chance to snatch up a live auction item for a substantial bargain.
“You get a bottle of wine for $100 and you're entered into the drawing for anything out of the live auction (before the auction begins),” she said.
Last year, an attendee bought a $100 bottle of wine and walked away with a week-long trip to Hawaii that Parton estimated was worth about $10,000.
Cellarbration! is the biggest source of funding for the foundation, which offers scholarships to students from across the Basin. BBCC has the largest service area of any community college in Washington, covering 19 high schools, and at least one student from each receives a scholarship, Parton said at last year’s event. In addition, there’s money set aside for returning students who have had to put their education on pause. Every program at BBCC, including workforce education, nursing and Running Start, has students who are funded by scholarships, organizers said.
The foundation also maintains an emergency fund, for students who run into financial difficulties that might otherwise force them out of school. That’s funded separately at Cellarbration! with a paddle raise.
“We just got a $10,000 donation that's going to go towards that,” Parston said. “So we're going to have to see if anybody else will match that.”
Last year, Cellarbration! raised $247,700, according to data supplied by the foundation.
“This academic year, we hit half a million dollars in scholarships that we awarded,” Parton said. “We had this incredible, totally anonymous donor from the Seattle area. I don't know who they are; we work through their brokerage account. They donated $60,000 for nursing students.”
“We are here for the students who will benefit from the money we raised, and they may be nameless to us now,” BBCC President Sara Thompson Tweedy told the crowd last year. “But we stand on a tradition that this event will make a difference in people’s lives.”
Cellarbration! 2025
Reception and silent auction 5 p.m., dinner 6:30 p.m. Feb., 15
BBCC ATEC Building, 7611 Bolling St. NE, Moses Lake
Individual $125, Table of 8 $1,200
Tickets available at https://bit.ly/BBCC-Cellar25.
From left: Tanner Warkentin, Jalen Garza and Caitlin Boss catch up over a glass of wine at the 2024 Cellarbration!