Before Tom Buter moved as a teenager from Michigan to Lancaster County, a family in the Wolverine State already had made quite an impression on him.

The family ran the funeral home in the small town of Zeeland, Mich., and were some of his parents' closest friends.

A few years later, after his father's transfer here on business, the young Buter was deciding on a career.

The 1967 Manheim Township High School graduate remembered that family.

So he entered mortuary science, went to school in Pittsburgh, then returned to Lancaster County to follow in the footsteps of people he truly admired.

Time has proven it was a good choice.

It's a field that lets him show "professionalism in supporting grieving families with compassion," said Buter, a licensed funeral director for Fred F. Groff Inc. Funeral Home for the past 38 years.

This week, Buter is displaying his special skills at organizing, and he's showing compassion in another capacity.

The 59-year-old is serving — in a post he has held for a decade and a half — as volunteer chairman of Hospice of Lancaster County's annual Labor Day auction.

The 2008 event, being held today and Monday at Lampeter Fairgrounds, is a huge undertaking, requiring the help of 300 volunteers.

But at its heart, the event, which raised $333,000 last year, remains focused on one mission — serving patients and their families at the end of life and providing "support to anyone in the Lancaster County community in need of care," as Buter puts it.

His role of heading the annual auction seems like a natural for him, because to meet the friendly Buter is to meet someone who loves both people and helping them.

Although Buter describes the two-day event as a "well-oiled machine," Hospice's top executive says it simply wouldn't work without Buter.

"Tom continues to be a significant part of guiding and helping the auction grow to where it is today," said Steve Knaub, the county Hospice's chief executive officer.

When the first auction was held in 1984, Hospice officials were delighted when they made $1,250.

Because of the growth of the event since then, Buter and the auction committee meet year-round.

After this year's auction is done, "we'll meet afterward and do a recap, and a month after this year's is over, we'll start planning for next year," Buter said.

The 2009 auction will be the event's 25th anniversary.

"Tom provides remarkable leadership, which has been the driving force behind the auction becoming (Hospice's) signature fundraising event," said Bonnie Jess Lopane, the organization's vice president of development and community relations.

"The auction truly would not be possible were it not for the dedication, hard work and tireless efforts of so many volunteers, led by Tom."

To walk into one of the long warehouse-like buildings at the sprawling Lampeter Fairgrounds off Village and Lampeter roads is to see what she means.

There, past volunteers setting up the items to be displayed for auction, past a sign that says "DONATIONS ACCEPTED HERE," is an energetic man with an easy laugh.

That would be Buter, an East Hempfield Township resident who serves the Lancaster community in many ways.

He's an active member and assistant treasurer at Lancaster's Covenant United Methodist Church and is a former two-term member of Hospice's board of directors.

He also serves on Hospice's development and community relations committee.

This year's Hospice auction is being held today from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Monday, from 8:30 to 6 p.m.

Buter is thankful for the example set by the family back in western Michigan.

"They were very community-minded, very dedicated people, and they filled the needs of a lot of families back in our town," he recalled. They also ran the local ambulance service.

In that same way, Buter seeks to serve here. He's not married, "and that also gives me that time and the freedom to do those kinds of things to help" and serve the Lancaster-area community, he said.

Buter also humbly says the success of the Hospice event "all goes back to the terrific volunteers who make it happen." Those 300-plus volunteers, before the auction ends Monday, will work nearly 700 different shifts.

Buter also credits the donors, who bring in hundreds of items, the buyers and the corporate sponsors for helping to make the auction a success.

Thousands of items will be sold simultaneously in many arenas, and a variety of Pennsylvania Dutch food will be made on-site by the local Amish community.

E-mail: doconnor@lnpnews.com or call 481-6033