CARRABASSETT VALLEY — Carrabassett Valley Academy held its annual scholarship fundraiser on Feb. 22, and event organizers deemed it a tremendous success, both socially and financially.

The event, which features a raffle as well as live and silent auctions, surpassed its revenue goal by generating $93,000, which will be used for scholarship support at CVA.

Event organizer and CVA Director of Development Kate O’Halloran said she continues to be amazed, humbled and grateful for the incredible community support. “They say sometimes it takes a village to make things happen, but we say it takes a valley, and what a valley we have! From those who donated raffle and auction items, signed on as sponsors, bought raffle tickets, jumped in to volunteer, bid on items or just joined us for the evening, we hope that every person involved takes great pride in knowing what a tremendous difference your support has made. Truly, we could not have done this without you – all of you. Nearly half of CVA’s students receive financial assistance and this is now the only annual CVA fundraising event for scholarship support, which makes its success vital.”

The record revenues were due in part to an increase in raffle ticket sales this year; event organizers hoped to sell 500 tickets, which was a significant increase from the 350 sold in past years.

“We ended up selling 458 tickets, which was incredible, especially when we were looking at how few we had sold on the Monday before the event. We had a great response in the last 72 hours, which I have come to realize is the way this event often goes,” said O’Halloran, but she also hinted that the team has been contemplating some new ideas for next year that they hope might provide an incentive for people to buy their ticket a little earlier.

The auction also produced record revenues, with 140 items at a wide range of price points. The online auction generated 124 bids before the actual event, which helped drive up bid amounts. Additionally, professional auctioneers Rusty and Patty Farrin from Farrin’s Country Auctions were back in the valley, and got the crowd to bid and buy the 15 “live auction” items that included golf trips, Italian cooking classes, a day sail around Acadia and a decommissioned Spillway lift chair.

One highlight of the event was the showing of a new CVA video, recently created by CVA alumnus Kyle Hockmeyer ‘93, who owns FieldStone Media in Rome.

The major highlight came at the end of the night with the drawing of the $10,000 grand prize, which was won by CVA alumni parents and board members Paul and Carol Fremont-Smith, who donated the prize back to CVA for the Martha B. Webber Scholarship Fund.