HOULTON, Maine – Innovative Aroostook County bachelors will vie for dates and the Spud Stud Crown next week during the first ever Spuds & Studs Bachelor Auction fundraiser in Houlton.
With a starting $20 bid, auction attendees will raise their bid paddles in the hopes of winning a creative, festive or even offbeat date with a brave bachelor. All the bachelors in the auction will propose their idea of a good date. Date ideas from bachelors already signed on to take the auction plunge include four-wheeling and a picnic with an ice cream finale, another is roller skating and dinner.
“The date doesn’t have to be expensive,” said Johanna Johnston, part of the auction planning group. “Even a walk and a picnic is fun.”
The bachelor who raises the most money will be crowned the Spud Stud King.
Bachelor auctions are notoriously animated and have raised significant dollars for charitable causes. For example, the Boston Bachelor Auction run by the Junior League helps fund community training programs. This past year it raised over $30,000 with nearly $17,500 in ticket sales, over $8,200 in auction proceeds as well as nearly $5,000 in-kind donations and over $2,800 in cash donations.
The Houlton event, slated to fund future local free community events and programs, is the brainchild of the loosely knit Community Impact Alliance, made up of a group of local business owners and leaders who want to support and add to already scheduled community events.
The Spuds & Studs Bachelor Auction, slated for 7 p.m. August 16 at Bastions Tavern, 43 Market St., is happening during the town’s annual Potato Feast Days.
The Community Impact Alliance thought it would be fun to hold the auction during the annual festival, said Jared Tapley, a local business adviser with the Northern Maine Development Corp. who is part of the community group.
“We knew Potato Feast Days were coming up and we wanted to do something different and see how that works in the community,” Tapley said.
The Community Impact Alliance meets over lunch each Wednesday at the Carleton Project to brainstorm new ideas to attract people to the historic downtown.
Tapley and Johnston will MC the bachelor auction and most of all they want it to be fun, they said, adding that they are looking to get 10 to 12 bachelors.
“I think we can entertain the crowd and also hold a decent event with 10 or 12,” Tapley said.
All bachelors must be at least 21. The application deadline is Aug. 12 and the Community Impact Alliance will review the applications, notifying the finalists by Aug. 15, according to organizers.
To apply, bachelors will complete the application, including a proposed date idea and a selfie.
There is no charge to participate as a bachelor or attend.
“You could even take someone fishing,” said Lilly Haggerty, executive director of the Carleton Project who is part of the Community Impact Alliance. “Women like to fish.”
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