FORKS — You have your baked goodies, your smoked salmon and your handmade wooden toys and furniture.
But what jumps out at Cheri Dahlgren and Brooke Jacoby, two organizers of the Quillayute Valley Scholarship Auction, is a phone booth.
Yes, this artifact of yesteryear comes out of the Hoh Rain Forest, where it gathered moss outside the Olympic National Park Visitor Center.
And since we don’t use phone booths much anymore, it’s going up for bid among the hundreds of items in the auction this Saturday and Sunday.
The event is open to the public from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday on a variety of portals:
■ Online at www.searchforks.com/qvsa.
■ By phone at 360-374-6262, ext. 228 or 229.
■ At the auction display site itself, the Forks High School Commons at 261 S. Spartan Ave.
For the third time, bidders can also tune in to a live stream of the auction at www.forks1490.com.
The seniors at Forks High School run the show, and “every year, they get new ideas,” said Dahlgren, one of the adult volunteers.
At all auction sites, credit cards are accepted while all sales are final.
Last year’s event raised a record-breaking $88,000, according to 2014 committee chairman Jerry Leppell.
This time around, in the 51st annual event, Forks High’s seniors hope to do even better.
Money from the annual auction funds grants to Forks High seniors and graduates to pay for college costs, vocational school fees or tools for graduates heading off to work.
Any Forks High graduate is eligible for a scholarship twice in his or her life, based on financial need, grades and participation in past auctions.
Jacoby, for her part, noted another standout item at the auction.
Pontiac Grand Am
“Wilder Auto [of Port Angeles] is donating a 2004 Pontiac Grand Am sedan,” she reported.
The snow-white car was delivered to Forks earlier this week.
Along with her fellow senior auction coordinators Skyler Brandt, 17, and Alex Speer, 18, Jacoby is among about 70 students who will graduate from Forks High this June.
She hopes to pursue a career in nursing.
The auction typically offers more than 1,000 items, Dahlgren added.
“There will be a couple of pianos,” she said, along with raspberry plants, paintings from local artists, birdhouses and jewelry boxes made by woodworkers at the Olympic Corrections Center.
As for the rain forest phone booth, “we’ve already got a few people interested in that,” Dahlgren said.
Donations are also accepted at the auction. Those who want to simply mail a check can do so to QVSA, P.O. Box 976, Forks, WA 98331.
Since its beginnings, organizers said, the auction has raised more than $1 million.
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Features Editor Diane Urbani de la Paz can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5062, or at diane.urbani@peninsuladailynews.com.
