Lyle Area Cancer is about to celebrate a milestone: $2 million raised to fight cancer.

“That is one huge milestone,” co-chair Larry Ricke said.

But on Wednesday when about 20 LAC volunteers gathered in the meeting room of the Lyle American Legion to plan the final details for the 36th Lyle Area Cancer Auction on Jan. 16 and 17, they weren’t quick to take credit. Instead, they finalized a plan to help thank and recognize everyone in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa who’s attended LAC events, bid on items and participated over the years.

“It’s not us that’s doing it,” Ricke said. “It’s the people that come, the people that donate.”

Volunteers will highlight Lyle Area Cancer’s $2 million raised from 1980 to 2015 with a banner featuring a pink footprint. They’ll ask everyone attending the auction to sign the banner — outside the footprint and the lettering — to commemorate the milestone.

“Everybody that’s here, everybody that donates is a part of that $2 million footprint,” Ricke said.

The auction will be held in the Lyle American Legion and the adjoining Lyle maintenance building. This year’s auction starts at 6 p.m. Friday and will continue until around midnight or 1 a.m. The auction resumes at 11 a.m. Saturday and runs until the last item sells, typically between 1 and 2 a.m. Sunday morning.

It took LAC 29 years to raise its first $1 million. When LAC hit its second million next weekend, it will have taken only seven years. Ricke can’t attribute the growth to one thing.

“It was a mass production of everything coming together in such a uniform way that it was beautiful,” Ricke said.

36 years of growth

LAC’s roots can be traced to a 1979 muscular dystrophy auction, but the focus quickly shifted to cancer. Betty Fisher, Ricke’s mother, remembers the first official cancer auction held at Lyle’s Silver Saddle in 1980 and how the idea came up. Austin Camera Club members visited Lyle and talked about a recent cancer fundraiser. Folks in Lyle asked how they could help, and the auction was formed.

The auction started small, raising $5,318 in its first year. Fisher remembers a coat hanger sold for $85 after all the other items had sold. That spirit has lived on, as it’s not uncommon for a jar of pickles or loaf of home-baked bread to sell for more than $100.

From 1980 through 1997, the auction raised about $5,000 to $12,000 a year before reaching the $15,000 mark in 1998 and 1999. But then a few things came together to change the auction and boost fundraising totals.

The Lucille Johnson Pool Tournament was added as the second LAC event. The 15th annual tournament and 14th annual youth tournament are being held at the Carpenter, Iowa, community center this weekend. A year later, LAC added the Harley raffle.

Over time, volunteers formed several new events to pledge money to LAC each year, and today several events occur throughout the year.

As LAC and its events expanded, more space was needed for the annual January celebration. Around the time the first new events were added to LAC, the auction expanded from the Lyle American Legion to the legion and the Lyle maintenance building, offering more space for the event to grow and host more people.

“We could not do six digits in this room,” Ricke said in the meeting room of the Legion, where the auction was held for several years.

In 2004, the auction and other LAC events crossed six figures for the first time. It hasn’t raised less than $111,000 since. LAC hit $200,000 for the first time in 2013, and the group raised $186,000 last year.

LAC is already off to a strong start in money raised this year, though LAC doesn’t announce totals until the auction. However, Ricke promised a few events will pledge record amounts to LAC next weekend.

Spinning For a Cure, held every February, brought in a record amount, as did the Halfway to January Cancer Bash. The event was held in June before founder Tracy Schilling passed away in December. Her sons plan to continue the event.

Ricke and other organizers expect it to be an emotional scene when cancer bash volunteers pledge money raised in June, as Schilling was known for speaking at the auction each year and became an advocate for cancer treatments and screenings.

“She was such an impact and a spokesman for cancer,” Ricke said.

 ‘Making a difference’

In the weeks leading up to the auction, many items have been donated to be auction off. Some are familiar, like a $5,000 gift certificate for braces from Overby Orthodontics. Others are new, like a wooden rocking horse donated by donated by Dorothy and Walter Hofner, who made the horse, and John Bengison. Someone else donated a timeshare on Village West of Lake Okoboji.

Many more items will be donated in the days leading to the auction.

Tickets are still on sale at several local businesses for the annual Harley Raffle. The winner, drawn Saturday night, will get a 2014 Harley Davidson Street Glide, second-place will get $400 and third place $200. Raffle tickets are available for $20 by calling Roe Naylor at 507-438-5804.

The money from the auction is donated through the Eagles Fifth District Cancer Telethon, which is Saturday and Sunday at Rochester’s Mayo Civic Center. LAC leaders typically make a pledge early Sunday afternoon in Rochester. Money from the auction mostly stays local, with much of it going to The Hormel Institute, the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota.

Volunteers feel they’re making a difference. Gary Ziegler, who’s volunteered many years with his wife, Cindy, said they’ve gotten to see cancer treatments take significant leaps forward in 36 years, and he praised the work done at the Hormel Institute.

The $28.5 million expansion currently underway at the Institute helps motivate LAC, according to Ziegler, who added scientists are hopeful many types of cancers could one day be eradicated.

“We all feel we’re making a difference,” Ziegler said. “Maybe it’s just a sliver.”