Park commissioner Nancy Phillips (left) and auction organizer Diann Ray.
The annual Possible Dreams Auction, the Island’s signature summer charity event that has sustained Martha’s Vineyard Community Services for more than three decades, is heading back to the seaside and will take place this year in Ocean Park in Oak Bluffs, allowing the event to expand its capacity as the economy hammers philanthropy across the country. Auction organizers will announce the venue change today. Held on the first Monday in August, the Dreams auction, where one-of-a-kind experiences often involving celebrities or high-profile executives with Vineyard connections are sold off to the highest bidder, has raised nearly $8 million over the past 31 years. But after a record year in 2006, when longtime auctioneer, the late Art Buchwald, coaxed more than $800,000 out of patrons in a single night in his final appearance at the podium, the auction faltered two years ago. Besides the absence of Mr. Buchwald, the auction on the lawns of the Harborside Inn in Edgartown suffered a rain delay. Organizers discovered that many celebrities and deep-pocketed donors who schedule a long weekend to stay on Island for the auction cannot stretch their time off for an extra day the Tuesday auction that year netted almost 50 per cent less than the year before, putting a big strain on Community Services, the nonprofit umbrella social services agency that provides counseling programs, early childhood help, domestic violence assistance and other human services to year-round Islanders. “It was a huge impact,” said auction co-chairman DiAnn Ray. “In this century, people’s schedules don’t have the flexibility they once had. We found out in the worst way,” she added. It was not possible to put up a tent on the grounds of the Harborside, and its manager Joe Badot supported the difficult decision to move the event last year to tented grounds around Outerland, the nightclub near the airport.
“Outerland was wonderful to us,” said Mrs. Ray of last year’s experience, where donations stayed about the same as the year before. But Outerland was shuttered last fall and is on the market. “We were too nervous about what would be there,” she said.