Year S Auction

Boy Scout Troop 380 of Hampstead will have its annual fund-raising auction March 5 at Snyder's Auction House on Mott Avenue in Hampstead. The auction will begin at 10 a.m. and end when all the merchandise is sold.This year's auction is the eighth for the troop, which is sponsored by Wesley United Methodist Church.Area businesses and restaurants are contributing new goods and services for the auction, which will feature sports collectibles ranging from cards to team hats, tools and accessories, and household goods.

Whenever a major natural disaster occurs anywhere in the world, the victims can usually count on help from the Church of the Brethren, especially from the church's New Windsor Brethren Service Center.Last year, the center's Emergency Disaster Fund spent nearly $1 million assisting those in need, from West Virginia to Russia. Now, the Mid-Atlantic Disaster Response Network is asking for help at its annual fund-raising auction, an event that has generated more than $425,000 since 1981.This year's auction will be in Westminster on Saturday at Carroll County Ag Center.

The cafeteria of St. Louis Catholic School was full of people talking, eating and drinking - but it wasn't lunchtime at the Clarksville parochial school. This crowd of about 500 was gathered a few minutes before 8 p.m. Saturday, many of them wearing night-on-the-town finery, sipping wine and munching appetizers as they chatted and examined artwork for sale. The school was holding its biennial art auction, this time to raise money for its crisis management program, started after the 1999 student killings at Columbine High School in Colorado, said Principal Terry Weiss.

THEY CALL it a silent auction, but don't let the name fool you. This Bollman Bridge PTA event is not silent, nor the least bit quiet. It is downright boisterous, but everyone seems to have fun competing to give money to the school. This year's auction, the fifth for the elementary school, was held March 8 in the Great Room at Savage Mill. About 230 parents, school staff members and local residents came to bid on nearly 300 lots, ranging from a golf ball gift set to a week's vacation in the Shenandoah Valley.

It's not exactly a yard sale, but Howard County police say they'll have the best bargains in town tomorrow at the department's annual auction.Bikes, videocassette recorders, phones, stereos, tools and other things -- stolen or lost property unclaimed by owners or items forfeited by the courts -- will be sold for a fraction of their usual prices at an open-to-all auction in the rear parking lot at police headquarters in Ellicott City."