For the 14th year, BigIron Realty is partnering with St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital to conduct an auction at Husker Harvest Days. The auction will be Sept. 11 on the bigiron.com online auction platform. Auction items will be in the BigIron Tent on Lot 1133 at the corner of Central Avenue and 11th Street.

Proceeds from the auction will help fund St. Jude in its ongoing fight against childhood cancer and other catastrophic diseases. St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital is internationally recognized for its pioneering work in finding cures for these diseases and saving children’s lives.

Since the auction was first held at HHD in 2006, BigIron has raised over $569,000 to go toward St. Jude.

Founded by the late entertainer Danny Thomas and based in Memphis, Tenn., St. Jude has helped push overall childhood cancer survival from 20% when the hospital opened its doors in 1962 to over 80% today.

Thanks to donors and fundraisers, St. Jude has the freedom to focus on what matters most: finding cures and saving children. Families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing or food. By sharing knowledge freely and exchanging ideas openly, St. Jude is inspiring more collaboration between doctors and researchers worldwide.

Range of items at auction

Over the last 14 years, the benefit auction at HHD has sold a wide variety of items to go toward this cause. Oftentimes, visitors buy inputs like fertilizer or seed, which they would normally buy anyway, says Mark Stock, president and co-owner of BigIron. Buying it at this auction, however, means the proceeds go to a good cause.

Items have included seed corn, soybean seed, soy biodiesel fuel, craft items, tractor steps, livestock gates, a three-point round bale carrier, tools, toy tractors, books, fuel certificates, parts certificates, pivot end guns and more.

When bidders download the BigIron app, they can bid on the items while they walk around the grounds at HHD or from anywhere in the world. This allows supporters of St. Jude to participate in the auction from anywhere, and ultimately raise more funds to cure the children at St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

“Last year, we converted the auction to the online-only BigIron platform, and we had thousands of people bidding on the items that were donated,” Stock says. “We are making this fundraiser for St. Jude available even to those people who can’t be at the site during the auction. They can be anywhere bidding on the BigIron mobile app and supporting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.”