The Raupp Museum is reviving a 100-year-old Buffalo Grove tradition with a new Firefly Picnic. Attendees will be able to bid on a variety of picnic dinners prepared by local restaurants, enjoy their winning picnic basket on the museum grounds, listen to live entertainment, and finish up the night by enjoying coffee and desert, while looking at the museum exhibits. Concessions will also be available for anyone who doesn't win a basket.
This traditional event has a long history in this community. The first record of a fundraising picnic in Buffalo Grove is in July of 1899, when St. Mary's Church raised $844.98 with a picnic and fair over the Fourth of July. During the next several years, picnics and concerts would be common fundraising events, with at least one event annually. Several were sponsored by the Buffalo Grove Girls' Society, including a basket social in 1909 where 38 picnic baskets were auctioned off to raise $90.50 (equivalent to over $2,000 today) and guests could enjoy the music of Ed Staade's concertina (he charged $4 to play for the evening).
While the young ladies of the Girls' Society created the baskets themselves, the Raupp Museum will be auctioning baskets created by local restaurants, grocery stores and delis, and the musical entertainment for the evening will be provided by Alfonso Ponticelli and Swing Gitan, Chicago's premier gypsy-jazz band. All money raised will be used to support the museum's free educational programs for local schools.
The event will be held rain or shine. For more information, call the Raupp Museum at 847-459-2318.
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