2024 Auction Lots

Every year, the Naples Winter Wine Festival provides patrons and donors the opportunity to support one of the community’s greatest needs during the Fund a Need lot. This year, our Fund a Need focus is Early Learning, with a special emphasis on Mental Health.

The link between early childhood learning and adult success is well established, but the importance of mental health is sometimes overlooked. NCEF recognizes that early childhood development is more than just knowing ABCs and 123s. It is about the growth of the whole child, influencing academic skills like literacy and math along with social and emotional competence and overall health. Early experiences shape the developing brain and lay the foundation for producing resilient children, a lifetime of sound mental health.

Significant mental and behavioral health problems can and do occur in young children. A 2016 National Survey of Children’s Health found an estimated 50,000 preschoolers were suspended at least once. Their hitting, biting and pinching is frequently labeled as misconduct rather than developmental delays, and those children suffer when they are removed from early learning environments.

While many mental health challenges can be traced back to a child’s formative years, environmental circumstances can also affect the well-being of youth. Research has found that by age 11, 65% of children served by Healthcare Network have experienced at least one Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE). Unless recognized and treated, toxic stress can impair school readiness, academic achievement and both physical and mental health throughout the lifespan.

With your help, we will accomplish our goal to expand integrated layers of support and meet the needs of the whole child from day one. Staff will be equipped with the resources necessary to meet the needs of students; solutions will include therapy and/or counseling, interventions for children with learning disabilities and language barriers and early learning scholarships. By working with a wide safety net of teachers, parents and physicians, we hope to break down the walls between learning and emotional health.

NCEF’s goal is to provide access to support services and early intervention, increasing the resilience in youth and allowing them to maintain mental and overall well-being when faced with adversity.

NCEF’s multi-faceted approach to early childhood development leverages the importance of academic skills with influencing developmental competence and overall health. Help us continue NCEF’s blueprint for success and transforming our community.

Everyone who bids on this lot will be a winner, but the biggest winners will be the underserved children of Collier County.

Be Part of the Solution
Here’s how your contribution will make a difference:
$100,000 provides developmental screenings for 2,000 children
$50,000 provides assessments and therapies for 380 children with behavioral challenges
$25,000 provides scholarships for year-round care for 13 children
$10,000 provides mental health assessments for 80 children in need
$5,000 provides 500 children with monthly behavioral health services
$1,000 provides two classrooms with reading libraries

Here’s how this unique auction lot will work:
Your registration packet includes five cards that display your paddle number. Four of the cards display a specific dollar amount on one side and a signature line on the reverse side. The fifth card displays a write-in area for you to choose the amount with a signature line on the reverse side.

Following the auctioneer’s call to action, every paddle holder has the opportunity to drop one (or more) of the signed cards into the bucket provided by volunteers as they move from table to table through the tent.

Dig deep, bid high and help us make a difference: It’s ALL for the Kids!

Donor

The Caring Patrons of the 2024 Naples Winter Wine Festival