Parents used to bake cupcakes for school fund-raisers, but today in Wine Country many are producing specialty barrel lots for elaborate auctions.


Just when did the P.T.A. go highbrow?

With Auction Napa Valley gearing up this weekend, it's fitting to consider this rare culture of ours that is both monied and generous -- a place where the most astute wine pairing appears to be strategic marketing and charity.

The wine-for-a-cause idea works well here "because all of the players -- the winemakers, the owners and the investors -- all live in the area and are able to produce attractive lots," says Rob Kusel, vice president of Essex & Drake, a fund-raising consulting company in the Bay Area.

By comparison, Silicon Valley -- the premiere high-tech region in the U.S. -- "needs to be a bit more creative," says Kusel, "because it doesn't have the natural synergy we have here."

A comparison of two affluent public school districts, one in St. Helena and one in Silicon Valley's Los Gatos, proves Kusel has a point.

The St. Helena Unified School District raised $425,000 this spring with its Just Imagine auction, with wine-related lots comprising 65 percent of its offerings. By contrast, the Los Gatos Union School District raised about $250,000 at its most recent auction, with 25 percent of the lots wine-related.

Kathleen Bays, a member of the Los Gatos district's board of trustees, says their foundation raises about $1 million a year, with the majority coming from direct donations.

In St. Helena, parents could just as easily write checks, but they don't. Why? Because this model works for everybody involved. Vintners are motivated to give generously, knowing the bidders are their target demographic. Bidders also are motivated to give generously, knowing their goodwill contributions will give them a taste of the Wine Country lifestyle. Finally, parents are happy to donate huge amounts of time, knowing the reward will be money for otherwise endangered school programs.

Kusel says all public schools, as well as private schools, have been forced to be creative since the late 1980s and early '90s, when traditional government sources of funding began drying up.

The St. Helena district, which pools four of its schools' fund-raising efforts, has brought in $1 million-plus since it began this strategy in 2005. "It's surreal," says Susan Collins, one of the Just Imagine auction co-chairs. "I'm just amazed at the generosity."

The auction model for raising money has had a ripple effect, with clever, new events surfacing all the time.

"Let me be candid, if not crass," Kusel says. "They create revenue that can go right into the budget. . . . (A bequest from) a will or an estate might come in 30 years, where this is an instant infusion of cash."

With an auction-packed summer ahead, relish the creative synergy of Wine Country.

Peg Melnik, wine columnist for The Press Democrat, can be reached at 521-5310 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat. com.