Exclusive auction items, live music set stage for Notre Dame's Winter Extravaganza

Notre Dame Regional High School will host its annual Winter Extravaganza fundraising gala Saturday, Jan. 25.

Notre Dame president Tim Garner said the event is one of the school's biggest.

"Our Winter Extravaganza is one of our major fundraising events of the year, along with Activity Week," Notre Dame president Tim Garner said. "It is a way to have a gala, essentially, that brings people from the area into an event with a nice evening, with a dinner and dance, but also with the auction and other fundraising opportunities."

In 2024, Notre Dame raised $127,000 through the event to benefit the school and its programs. This year's goal is $130,000, a portion of which will go toward implementing an agriculture education program and a Future Farmers of America club.

"There's a ton of our students that are going to be four-year college-bound, and that's amazing," Notre Dame's director of development Nathan Martin said. "There's going to be a lot of our students that are career and technical. Then, there's going to be some students that go straight into the workforce or back to the family farm.

"Just being able to offer (agriculture education) to those students that are going into the workforce, or back to the farm or into those career and technical careers, I just think it's going to be super beneficial for them."

The annual event, presented by Saint Francis Healthcare Systems, features a plated dinner from The Southerner, a live auction, an open bar and live music performed by Cape Girardeau band Shades of Soul.

"It's a fun event to be at," Garner said. "A lot of times it'll be parents whose kids have gone through, and they get together, and spend a lot of time while their kids were in high school together, and that's an opportunity for them to come back together."

Some of the items up for bid in the auction include a front-row seat for graduation, dinner with the bishop at 36 Restaurant and Bar in downtown Cape Girardeau, a Cancun vacation package and a French river cruise package. In addition, a Louis Vuitton purse and 15 bottles of bourbon will be raffled off. Attendance is not required to win the raffles, and interested parties may purchase tickets online until noon Jan. 25 or at the event.

The Winter Extravaganza is from 5:30 to 10 p.m. at Drury Plaza Hotel Cape Girardeau Convention Center. Tickets may be purchased on Notre Dame's website and cost $125 each with a table of eight available for $875. Only 10 individual tickets and 10 tables remain, along with five Bronze Medal sponsorships, which provide two tickets to the event and a corporate name listed in the event's brochure.

"We couldn't do this without community support," Garner said. "We're just tremendously humbled by the people that donate items, but also by the people that come to the event every year."