Curtain About to Rise on 2009 Rhode Island PBS Spring Auction (but place your bids online!)

The annual Rhode Island PBS Spring Auction will be televised later tonight (Monday) through Friday, April 20-24, beginning at 7 PM each evening on digital 36.1, Cox/Verizon/FullChannel 8, DirecTV 36, Dish 7776 (Massachusetts cable subscribers should check local listings for channel). All auction items can be seen online at www.ripbs.org.

Every single item - from a $10 pizza to the $24,000 Prius - is available for viewing and bidding online. All bids will be placed online, whether it's by the bidders on computers at home, or by the volunteers taking bids over the phone in the studio.

This year's auction includes a Green Gallery that showcases environmentally-considerate goods and services. However, because of the way the items have to be categorized on the auction site, there are actually several more 'green' items than show up in that category. For example, the Toyota Prius Hybrid sedan (donated by Your New England Toyota Dealer) and fuel-efficient Vespa motor scooter (donated by Vespa Newport and Providence Motorsports) are listed under "Auto." Look, too, under "Household Goods" and "Home Improvement" for more 'green' items.

The Auction team Jeff Hartley, Paul Zangari, and our dedicated volunteer Harriet Deaver and intern Nick Pagano worked hard to coordinate the event you will see unfold this week - as well as hundreds more details you'll never see - to make this year's auction a success. There is also a cadre of loyal volunteers (who return year after year to donate their precious time) who have picked up, photographed, sorted, and wrote descriptions of the items. It really is a phenomenal machine, this organization within an organization!

Curtain's about to rise; the show's ready to start. But the online component means geography is no hindrance. Where ever you may be located - New England or England - you can scope out the goods, place your best bid, and know the money you invest is money well-placed.