Hags-n-Bags Halloween Purse Auction Saturday

Dust off your brooms and get ready for the Hags-N-Bags Halloween Purse Auction on Saturday, October 22 at the Fair Building. The dinner will be at 6 p.m. and the auction will be at 7 p.m. All proceeds will be for T-Town Cancer Crusaders. Advanced tickets are $12 and Walk-Up Sales are $15. 

Come celebrate Halloween and raise funds for local cancer patients to help with hotel, meals, fuel, and other travel expenses for oncology appointments. They will have dinner and auction new and gently used purses.

Event volunteer Bridget Bury said that the Hags-N-Bags event started with a sorority group of girls under a different name and held it for a couple of years but then stopped. Bury said, “We had so much fun when we went to both of those events that when they stopped it, my aunt, Dolly Daniels, and I decided we would take over.” Bury and Daniels held one event about three or four years ago and then couldn’t again because of Covid. Now they are holding their second event.

Bury continued and said, “The money from the fundraiser goes to T-Town Cancer Crusaders. That was started with Connie Hoffman. When Dolly and I took over, we needed some kind of sponsor. And so we hooked up with T-Town Crusaders because the money that is raised from the fundraiser, it actually is for Hot Springs County cancer victims. And that was the whole purpose of the purse auction in the first place when the sorority had it, too.”

At the previous Hags-N-Bags event, they raised close to $13,000. Dress in your Halloween costumes for pictures that will be taken and framed. These pictures can be with your family, your friends, or whomever. The dinner is catered by 7 Lazy S Cafe and the open bar will be set up from Shorty’s. Tickets are selling out fast, so contact Bridget Bury at 921-1732 and Dolly Daniels at 921-9244.

Bury added, “It’s a great fundraiser. It’s a great time for women to get together, because October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. And so it’s a great time for all of us sisters. We’re all sisters to get together and just have a time to visit and share and donate.”

Regarding how purses are provided for the auction, Bury said, “We’ve had boxes all around town since September 1st after Labor Day… And we encourage women to drop off any of their purses that they’re not using anymore. We go through them and we clean them.”

“We’ve got some that we have bought that are brand new. We have some that have been donated by people who have really cool purses that they just don’t use anymore. So we pick out like 30, 35, whatever, really, really great purses, unique purses. And those are what are auctioned by John Gerrells and John Holmes.”

“The rest of the purses are just as special, but we have them on a table that we can sell for $20, $15, $5. So when the women come in, they can shop before the auction starts. If they want to buy a $20 purse or a 50, because not everybody can really go and spend a lot of money on big purses.”

Please drop off purses at Storyteller, Thermopolis Hardware or Discover Thermopolis. 

Bury explained about her and Daniel’s motivation for the event and said, “We both in our family, we’ve lost several family members to cancer. And so this is kind of a special thing for us. When we went to one with the sorority and then when they didn’t have it, we didn’t want to see it stop because we decided to take over because it really meant something to us.”

Connie Hoffman is the founder and treasurer of T-Town Crusaders and helps sponsor Hags-N-Bags find a place to donate the proceeds for cancer victims. Hoffman, along with friends and family, founded T-Town Crusaders in 2017. 

Hoffman said, “It was a lot of seeing the need in the community to help local cancer patients with fuel and meals and hotels when they were traveling to see oncology specialists and for specialty scanning, things that aren’t offered to our hospital. And we weren’t trying to replace like the cookie jars that provide help with people’s actual medical bills. Really, truly was just a little support so that they could know that the community cared about them and that they could maybe be able to focus on their health. Because that’s what I found was, you know, battling this myself is that if you’re so worried about the bills, it’s hard to focus on your health. And so the only criteria to be eligible for our funds is to be a local of Hot Springs County and fill out a short application that has your doctor’s name, so we can verify a few specifics.”

Hoffman added, “We were thrilled when Bridget Bury and Dolly Daniels first came to us and proposed the Hags-N-Bags fundraiser. And what made it really wonderful is they took the ball and ran with it. They’ve done all the details and everything. Normally I’m the one, and my other officers kind of have to oversee every fundraiser and everything. And it’s really been different because they have just said, ‘Here’s the date, we got the auctioneer, we’ve got the food lined up’, and then they give us all the proceeds.”

T-Town Crusaders is a registered 501c nonprofit organization. Candy Whitt is the president, Carol Hunter is secretary and 100% of the proceeds go to local cancer patients.