Festival of Trees raises pledges for club

The Boys & Girls Club of the Hi-Line started something new at the sixth annual Festival of Trees held Saturday night.

A reverse pledge auction was held.

Master of ceremonies Casey Pratt started off the auction asking the crowd at St. Jude Parish Center if anyone wanted to donate $5,000. Three people did.

Then he lowered the threshold, getting more and more volunteers. Finally, there was a crowd willing to donate $100 each.

A total of $64,000 was raised in pledges.

That was only half of the good news.

The Murdock Foundation donated $100,000 to the Boys & Girls Club, but also agreed to match funds raised at the Festival of Trees.

That meant that $128,000 was raised by the pledge auction.

That was on top of the usual proceeds of the festival.

Trees decorated by businesses and community groups were auctioned off at a good clip throughout the evening.

And items donated by local businesses and people raised a good deal of money, club officials were tallying up the amount of money raised.

The effort to expand the club building is vital to the club's future, said Tim Brurud, the club's director.

"We are still turning kids away every day," he told the crowd.

"We have raised half of what we need to carry out the expansion," he said. "So we are asking people to pledge money, so we can serve more kids."

The club also presented its annual Champion of Youth awards:

• Fran Baltrusch was given the Individual Champion award. She's a volunteer at the club, and thoroughly enjoyed working frequently in the Power room. But when the employee who runs the room had to take the month off, Baltrusch volunteered daily to take her place.

• Gary & Leo's Fresh Foods was given the Champion of Youth business award. Gary & Leo's was cited for its frequent donations to the club.

The store offered its parking lot and cooked special food for the club's 10th anniversary.