Students create unique auction items

Hitting upon that bright and fresh, one-of-a-kind idea to raise money is a recurring challenge for all organizations. This year teachers and parents at Sisters Christian Academy have come up with a concept that they hope will raise big dollars for the school.

The Christian academy will auction five matted and framed photographs at this year's benefit fund-raiser, "Where The Heart Is," set for February 16. The pictures will spell out the words Faith, Hope, Joy, Peace and Grace - with each word's letters formed by the school's

Last Thursday, with the help of teachers and parents, Steve Gardner, owner of Pixelworks Studios, Inc., a Sisters firm that specializes in photographing book covers (www.shootpw.com), conducted a photo shoot to get the project rolling.

Students in grades K-5, dressed in white shirts and khaki pants, posed to form letters of the alphabet on a black duvetine theatrical cloth tarp in the warehouse of the Sisters building that formerly housed Multnomah Publishers, Inc.

Perched on a Geni lift (commonly called a cherry picker) donated by Sisters Rental, Gardner captured the students forming the letters to spell the five words.

"From here we'll digitally put the letters together to spell out the words," said Gardner. "They (parents and teachers) were going to try to coordinate it to where all the kids were going to spell out the letters and we would do that in one shot, but after trying to work with that many kids who were wiggling the whole time, it was easier to do it one letter at a time," said Gardner.

"We will go back and assemble the words in

PhotoShop," said Stu Ehr, who was helping Gardner with the shoot.

Gardner told The Nugget that he will then run the pictures through the lab Pixelworks regularly uses.

"We'll do that at out cost. It goes to the East Coast, and we use the top lab in the country. Hopefully, the expense to the school is minimal, and they can get something back out of it," he added.

According to Gardner, the finished products will be beautiful black and white prints, 16-by-20 inches in dimension, or possibly

bigger.

Second and third grade teacher Gwen Philipsen, who is spearheading the project, oversaw the artistic direction of the shoot, Gardner said.

No one knows how much the school will raise through the sale of the photographs.

"It is absolutely so difficult to predict. I would imagine that they (the photographs) will start at about $200 and maybe go as high as $1,000 or $1,500 or more. Each will be a real specialty item, and if it's one of your children who's in it, it's very, very nice as a keepsake," Ehr said. "Sometimes people even bid and then give it (the item) back to the school to be auctioned again."

The school asks all to mark their calendars for Saturday, February 16. The event will be held at the FivePine Conference Center. The silent auction starts at 5 p.m., with dinner at 6 p.m. A live auction will offer many items in addition to the five photographs.