Seventy-nine-year-old Sonia Stofkooper never intended to pay $100 for a date with a man half her age.

But that’s exactly what happened last year at the Health Care Access Bachelor Auction. The Belgian-born woman said her daughter’s urging and the opportunity to donate to a good cause spurred her bidding on.

“I had no intentions of doing this. I mean, this is a young man who’s probably 45 at the most. I’m 79 years old!” she said.

“Well … I was only 78 then.”

That night, Stofkooper and two other female bidders won a group date with 31-year-old bachelor Tim Graham. Graham later wined and dined the winning bidders on a date at the Hereford House, 4931 W. Sixth St. He said Stofkooper’s age didn’t intimidate him one bit. “She was so nice and easy to talk to,” Graham said.

“She just had a story for everything – it was really a great time.”

This year’s fourth-annual Health Care Access Bachelor Auction will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at JB Stouts Bar & Grill, 721 Wakarusa Drive. The event’s proceeds will benefit Health Care Access, a clinic in East Lawrence that provides cheap or free health care to the uninsured.

Dates aren’t the only items up for auction – other prizes include salon packages, four man-hours of handiwork, private baseball lessons from a Kansas University coach and even a stay in France. Nikki King, executive director of Health Care Access, said the event is fun for everyone.

“Initially, everybody kind of grins, you know, haha, bachelor auction. Women in particular will say, ‘I’m married’ or ‘I’m dating somebody so I don’t need to go.’ The items we have in-between the bachelors are really for anybody – married, single, man, woman, anything,” King said.

Each auction is live, which means bidding wars for the prized bachelors sometimes get heated. Just last year, a group of women paid $500 for an evening in Chicago with one of the bachelors. This year’s dates range from casual to sophisticated, with everything in between. Here are a few of the dates up for bids:

¢ A hot-air balloon ride with a 58-year-old Kansas University professor

¢ Dinner, theater and coffee with a 40-something air ambulance staff member

¢ An afternoon at the speedway followed by dinner on the Plaza with a 30-year-old doctor-to-be

¢ A steak dinner and concert under the stars with the mayor of Pomona

¢ An afternoon on the lake spent skiing, tubing, sunbathing and more with two 30-year-old Denver men

¢ An hour or more with Sunflower Broadband Man, costume and all.

King said each of the men is chosen based on personality, looks and occupation. She added that most of the men are friends of the organizers.

“We aren’t just picking guys off the street,” she said.

Matt Krische, a 31-year-old dentist, was brave enough to volunteer for this year’s auction. He said he’s a little nervous about the auction but thrilled to contribute to Health Care Access. He plans to pay a few friends to attend and bid on him if no one else does, he said.

“I’m preparing for the worst, mentally, so no matter what happens I hope I won’t be too shocked,” Krische said.

Though the bachelors design each date, the auction winners have the final say. Auction co-chair Karin Feltman, who is also Stofkooper’s daughter, said last year, a winning bidder gave her bachelor the option of cleaning her gutters or taking her on a date. He did both.

King said as far as she knows, the bachelor auction hasn’t sparked any long-term romances. That’s just fine with Stofkooper, who said she’s not looking for love.

“I’ve been single for 15 years. But that’s good because I’ve been married three times, so I don’t want that to happen again,” she said.

Despite that attitude, she said the date she won at last year’s auction was “very, very nice.”

“And it was for a good cause,” she said.