The Salt Lake City chapter of the Assoc. for Women Geoscientists held their 20th annual wine & cheese benefit silent auction to raise funds for scholarships on Saturday night. Last year the event netted over $6,000 which allowed the Chapter to increase the size of awards. The highlighted award is the Susan Ekdale Memorial Scholarship of $2,000+ to a female student in the geosciences to help defray field camp expenses.
The totals aren't in for Saturday's soiree yet, but it was a wall-to-wall crowd of a couple hundred folks with such frenetic bidding that the deadline was extended to allow everyone to get their bids down. It's the pre-eminent geo-social event of the year on the Wasatch Front.
The first few of these were held in the home of then chapter-president Lori Robinson, who lived just a few blocks from me on the East Bench area of SLC. It was informal, with everyone bringing a bottle of wine. The professionals among us were prompted to kick in $5 or so to help sustain the Chapter. Fairly quickly, we outgrew not only Lori's house, but each succeeding larger location. For the past three years, it's been held in the historic Mill at Tracy Aviary but I wonder if it doesn't need yet a larger venue.
The crowd was so thick, it was difficult to see the auction items on the tables and there were some people there that I didn't see until we bumped into them heading out the door when the evening was over.