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Get $500 Taylor Swift Tickets or a $2K Aspen Vacation at PTA Auctions

 Several Downtown schools raise over $100,000 from their annual spring auctions and galas.
Spring Auctions
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LOWER MANHATTAN — Forget baked goods. At these PTA fundraisers, you’ll find a $1,495 Marc Jacobs Gotham bag, $500 Taylor Swift concert tickets and a $2,100 Italian vacation up for grabs.

Especially in affluent New York City neighborhoods like Lower Manhattan, a school’s spring auction has become the PTA’s biggest fundraising event, local parents said.

The Spruce Street School's PTA hopes to raise $100,000 in this year's auction, which will make up about 40 percent of their yearly budget. Several Downtown public elementary schools have regularly raised that much or more to fund their arts and science enrichment programs.

“We’re lucky to be in a community where this type of fundraising is possible,” said Spruce Street School’s PTA co-president Stacey Kurylo. “We raise almost half of the PTA budget with the Spring Auction and gala.”

At the Spruce Street School, bidding is now online for their May 9 gala, where they’ll also have a live auction and raffle. The 8 Spruce Street elementary school has more than 200 items up for auction, including a $1,600 chef’s dinner for eight people at restaurant Capital Grille, a $995 Oscar de la Renta necklace, and $200 VIP tickets to see the TV show "Live! With Kelly and Michael."

Spruce Street also auctions unique experiences considered “priceless” — such as getting your name used as a character in a novel by crime writer James Patterson.

There are also a host of health and beauty services, like a private pilates lesson for $250, an acupuncture and herbal medicine session for $210 or a $1,045 three month VIP membership to the UFC gym — a gym that caters to perfecting “ultimate fighting” techniques.

Also on the roster is a $210 astrology reading, and a variety of items for children, including a $625 movie-making camp.

“The funds provide things for our children they wouldn’t otherwise be able to get in a public school,” Kurylo said.  “Our parents may not have sent their kids to a private school, but many of them want their kids to have those opportunities.”

For example, at Spruce, PTA funds pay for dance classes for their students, run by the National Dance Institute. They are also trying to expand their coding classes for the elementary school children, as well as language classes.

Neighboring schools have also had some extravagant auctions.

TriBeCa’s P.S. 234's recent event listed more than 600 items for sale, including a $2,695 Judith Leiber Minaudière clutch, a two night deluxe stay in Aspen's Hotel Jerome for $2,050 and a $450 “healing session” with a woman billed as a mediator, coach and shaman.

The elementary school’s “priceless” items included a 15th anniversary DVD of the movie "Reservoir Dogs" signed by Tribeca resident Harvey Keitel and two tickets to watch Bravo TV show Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen.

"Anyone can bid online and help fundraise for the school," said Kurylo. "Our auction takes the whole year to put together, it's a lot of work, but we hope it brings the school significant benefits."