Seattle Prep’s annual SPREE (Seattle Prep’s Reach for Enduring Excellence) auction has grown into the school’s most significant fundraising tradition that has shaped student programs, campus spaces, and financial aid efforts for nearly six decades. Courtney Barker (Director of Advancement) explained, “The SPREE auction was started 57 years ago” and has become “our largest fundraising event of the year.” The funds raised “help to support all of our students, our teachers [and] programming,” along with each year’s targeted fund-a-need. Last year’s designation supported the Kathy Kruger Student Support Fund, while this year’s focuses on “reimagining all of our community spaces: the great room, the commons, and the cafeteria.”
Planning SPREE requires months of organizing, coordination, and community engagement. Bridget Toomey (Assistant Director of Advancement) described it as “just about a year-long process, a solid nine months that go into planning,” involving theme selection, item procurement and communication efforts. “There’s a huge community part, getting the community excited and an opportunity for students to volunteer.”
Auction items are gathered through a wide network. “We have an awesome and very robust procurement committee,” Toomey answered, noting that families from “different grade schools, parishes, and different parts of Seattle” help ensure desirable items.
Barker emphasized that donor support also comes through Prep Partners, a sponsorship program that “sponsors all of our events” and helps support SPREE so that “more money [goes] back to Prep.”
Despite its long history, each year brings new challenges. Organizers explained that the event is well organized, yet “always the little spokes in the machine cause different levels of stress,” said Barker. The lineup of auction items often shifts, sometimes dramatically. “You’ll think you have this whole lineup and then you get this amazing item, and it changes the whole flow of the night” Toomey added. Because of that, “you always have to be ready to pivot.”
Students play a visible role at the event, contributing energy and helping with logistics. “Our students are volunteering, grabbing bid packets, selling raffle tickets [or serving as] auction runners,” Toomey stated. Their presence helps attendees “understand why we’re all in the room together.”
Barker emphasized that SPREE offers multiple ways to participate, with “an online auction, an almost live auction, and then a live auction” so that “we have something for everyone to be engaged.” Above all, the night reflects the strength of the school community. “Everybody [is] believing in the mission of Seattle Prep and Spree is a night that just shines.”
