HAMILTON, Illinois -- Farm families oftentimes hold auctions do liquidate completely, to downsize, or simply to bring in extra cash. 

 For the Sullivan farm family just outside of Hamilton, Illinois their auction was out of the ordinary. Theirs was a benefit auction for Mayo Clinic in conjunction with their Customer Appreciation Open House.

 “We thought we might raise a few thousand dollars but we never imagined we raise close to a half million dollars,” Mark Sullivan said of that auction held on Aug. 22.

 They raised $464,000 to be exact. And it was a 1972 John Deere 4020 tractor that garnered all the attention and the cash. It was sold the first time to a group of local business for $250,000 and it was donated back. It sold a second time to Bruce and Joni Speer for $100,000 and was donated back once again. The tractor sold for a third and final time for $56,000 to Jon and Marcia Kinzebaw. The additional auction items and donations brought in $58,000, for a total of $464,000, all destined for the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

 The sole purpose of the auction was to raise money for leukemia research. In September of 2020, Dan Sullivan’s son, Michael, was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.

 “By the end of September Michael became extremely sick,” said Dan Sullivan, Michael’s father. “A blood check showed his hemoglobin was at 5.1 and it’s supposed to register at 15.0. A biopsy revealed he had acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Wow, did our world ever change then. That let the air out of us for sure.”

On Sept. 28, Michael was taken to the May Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, where he began a chemotherapy regimen. That chemotherapy process kept Michael confined in the hospital until this past spring.

A bone marrow donor was needed, and quickly. Siblings was the first search, but Michael’s sisters, Paige and Gracie, were no perfect match. Doctors checked for a match in the Bone Marrow Donors Worldwide (BMDW) and the World Marrow Donor Association (WMDA) registries, but there was still no match.

 “Doctors decided to go back to his sisters once again and chose the closest match, and that was Gracie,” Dan said. “She was in there for four days and they extracted the blood needed from her marrow.”

 The transplant procedure was performed on Feb. 12. By the middle of May, Michael was allowed to return to his farm.

 With Customer Appreciation Open House around the corner it was Michael’s wish to have all the proceeds donated to the Mayo Clinic.

 “All the proceeds from the auction from the auction went to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota for leukemia research,” Mark said. “Michael wanted this to be about the next person and the chance to save someone else’s life.”

 And no one other than Michael is more thankful than his father, Dan.

 “We encourage people to get on the leukemia registry at BeTheMatch.org,” Dan said. “It’s the global leader in bone marrow transplantation and connects patients with their donor match for a life-saving marrow transplant. After all, not everyone has a Gracie.”