Super Bowl tickets are the hottest auction item in town

How much would you be willing to pay to see the 49ers attempt to win their sixth Super Bowl in Las Vegas next weekend? The leaders at a Silicon Valley nonprofit and a South Bay private school are hoping to find out as they’re each separately auctioning off ticket packages this weekend.

49ers CEO Jed York and his wife, Danielle York, offered a top-flight package to the big game to Hillbrook School, which has a  campus in Los Gatos and began high school classes in downtown San Jose this school year. It includes two tickets to the Super Bowl, as well as tickets for the 49ers pregame tailgate party and postgame party, a three-night hotel stay on the Strip and two seats on the 49ers friends and family charter flight between San Jose and Las Vegas.

The package is officially part of the auction for Hillbrook’s “Fly Me to the Moon” benefit gala — but that isn’t until March 9, a month after the Feb. 11 game. So it’s being offered in an early item that will close Feb. 4 in an interesting way: Starting at 7 p.m., the highest bid that holds for two minutes will be the winner. As of Thursday morning, bidding was already up to $32,000 for the package, with proceeds going to the school’s flexible tuition program. Register to bid or get more information at e.givesmart.com/events/AKw.

Meanwhile, the Boys and Girls Club of Silicon Valley might have a more financially accessible package to get you to Vegas. It also will auction two tickets as part of a package that includes first class airfare as part of its Youth of the Year fundraising gala Friday night at the Signia by Hilton hotel in downtown San Jose. If you’re not going to the event but still want to bid, the nonprofit is accepting proxy bids until 9 a.m. Friday for that evening’s live auction. Get more information at bgcsvoldwebdev.wpenginepowered.com/gameon.

CLIMATE CONVERSATION: Silicon Valley Reads kicked off its season Wednesday night with a great discussion on the theme “A Greener Tomorrow Starts Today” among four writers behind this year’s book selections: Heather White, author of “One Green Thing”; Lily Brooks-Dalton, author of the novel, “The Light Pirate”; and Alexandria Villaseñor and Favianna Rodriguez, who each contributed to the essay anthology, “All We Can Save.”

Wednesday night’s stormy weather provided a good set-up for moderator Damian Trujillo of NBC Bay Area, who asked, “Isn’t it appropriate that we’ve got an atmospheric river going on outside?”

NBC Bay Area’s Damian Trujillo, far left, talks to four writers about their works on climate change at the kickoff for Silicon Valley Reads at De Anza College in Cupertino on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2024. The authors are, from left, Heather White, Lily Brooks-Dalton, Alexandria Villaseñor and Favianna Rodriguez. 

The talk touched on climate anxiety, the role of art and culture in creating change and how younger generations are responding to the challenge. “They’re seeing the way their communities are being affected firsthand, and they want to take action,” said Villaseñor, a high school student headed to Harvard next fall who started her climate activism at age 13 after witnessing the destruction caused by the Camp Fire in Northern California.

Both White and Brooks-Dalton will have more appearances this weekend, and art by Rodriguez, an Oakland artist, is featured in “Sacred Terrain,” an exhibition at the Euphrat Museum of Art at De Anza College that’s running through March 23 in conjunction with Silicon Valley Reads. You can get the full schedule of events at siliconvalleyreads.org.

CELEBRATION WITH HEART:  Palo Alto teenager Kaitlin Lowry will be one of the speakers at the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women luncheon Feb. 2 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.  Lowry was born with a congenital heart defect but overcame that adversity to excel in soccer and plans to continue playing in college.

It’s the 20th anniversary of the Go Red for Women campaign, a national movement to end heart disease and stroke in women, and that means Friday is also National Wear Red Day, when everyone is encouraged to don crimson clothing to raise awareness about women’s health. San Jose City Hall is expected to be lit up red Friday night and the City Council will declare February as Heart Month at its Feb. 6 meeting. Get more information at heart.org.