Let's pretend there are 10 "vendors" and each has 10 guests coming to bid on their items....10 vendors X 10 guests per vendor = min. of 100 people in the room.

Each vendor will auction 10 items at the charity quarter auction.
10 vendors X 10 auction items = 100 items to auction.
The items are quarter-marked by the retail value set by their company.
$12-$25 value = 1 Quarter Bid
$26-$50 value = 2 Quarter Bid
$51-$75 value = 3 Quarter Bid
$76 - or more = 4 Quarter Bid

All of the items are placed on a table in the front of the room, and are auctioned one by one. The "caller" holds up an item, reads the item description from a tag attached to the item, & tells the quarter bid amount for it.

Once the item is introduced, guests can "bid" on that item by putting a quarter in the bucket that is passed down their table and hold up their bid paddle that has a number on it, and a corresponding chip with the same number is in a bucket up front with the caller. Once all quarters are collected for that item, those quarters are dumped into the vendor bucket of whatever company that item is from (the quarters go home with that vendor to reimburse her for the item she auctioned) and the "caller" draws a chip from the bucket.

The caller calls the number, if the person with that number has her paddle in the air (signifying she bid on the item), she wins it for that bid amount (ex. 1 quarter). If the caller calls a number and the person did not bid, the caller will continue to call numbers until someone wins.

The charity raises funds through this event by charging for the bid paddles as the guests enter the hall ($1-3 per paddle).