By Paige Nash
A lot of strenuous work goes into the Minden St. Jude Auction every year and 2024 is no different as auction volunteers and patrons strive to find a “cure and beyond.” There is no denying the evolutions over the decades since the inaugural auction that first occurred in 1976. One of the most significant changes includes the auction going digital.
Many of those that participate in purchasing raffle tickets do so online through the auction website. The first website launched in 2005 and brought in approximately $15,000. In almost two decades since its creation, the website has become a big contributor to the auction’s success allowing participants from near and far to contribute to the grand total every year.
Owner of Parish Design Co. Patrick Miller is a graphic designer by trade so there was no question as to why Minden St. Jude Auction representative Melissa Brown reached out to him in 2014. Although he had been involved with the auction long before then. He volunteered at his first auction in 1999 to work the phone bank alongside his then fiancé Rachel Longfellow. Miller admits he wasn’t very good at it but is happy to serve in any capacity needed but feels more comfortable behind his computer than on the phone.
Miller said, “Melissa Brown contacted me about designing theme artwork for shirts, printed pieces, and taking over the website. It seemed right up my alley. I have been fortunate to design all the auction materials and build/host the website ever since.”
He also works closely with Kenneth Greer, who Miller describes as a “genius architect of the auction system” as well as Lea Ratcliff who oversees content and raffle items on the website every year.
“In the early days, orders would arrive online and had to be manually re-entered into Kenneth’s auction system. When I joined in Fall 2014, Kenneth and I put our heads together and built a more streamlined process which pulls down web orders and inserts them directly into the auction system,” said Miller. “Lea’s incredible web team now does order extracts every 3 to 4 minutes which allows us to push thousands of raffle purchases into the auction system in near real-time.”
With the digital aspect growing, the auction felt a real need to incorporate a dedicated social media team. Since then, the Minden St. Jude Auction has gone global by way of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and SnapChat.
According to Miller, the website broke its first $100K in 2011 followed by an impressive $362K in 2015 and then hit $537K in 2019. Seeing a trend here?
In 2023, the auction saw 49,000 web visitors from all 50 states and 49 countries around the world. “This web traffic contributed to 600,000+ pageviews on auction weekend. Orders were placed from as far away as Alaska, New York, Wisconsin, Australia, Germany, and Guatemala,” said Miller.
From 2005 to 2022, the auction website brought in approximately $5.5 Million dollars, but according to Miller a major milestone was reached just last year. “In 2023, the website broke the million-dollar mark with $1,036,433 in orders. That Million dollars consisted of 8,028 transactions made up of 85,633 items which puts the total amount of money raised on the web at $6.6 Million since 2005.”
The grand total raised last year came to a monumental $2,030,013, which means approximately half of the money came from digital sales through the website alone.
Over the past 48 auctions, Minden, Louisiana continues to remain the top contributor to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital per capita. Visit [https://www.cure4kids.org/] for more information.
“None of these milestones would be possible without the love and support of our volunteers, sponsors, donors, and a community which desires to eradicate catastrophic childhood cancers,” said Miller. “We are all excited to launch the 2024 Minden St. Jude Auction as we strive to find “… a Cure and Beyond!”
The auction will kick-off on Thursday, February 8. For those that cannot support in person, keep up with raffle items, updates, photos and more at view https://mindenstjude.com or via Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and SnapChat @mindenstjude.