Doing it for the kids: C4C auction (1 of 2)

One of the other really cool things about Spring at Stanford is that we have the Challenge 4 Charity (C4C) weekend double. The idea is to raise money for 2-3 nominated charities in the area (usually where some classmates are volunteering, and almost always where there are children - leading to the repetitious catchphrase, "it's for the kids"!). This year, we chose Yes Reading (which helps kids to read well and do other stuff good too) and BUILD (I'm not sure what they do, but I think it involves, um, building) ...

The first part is the fundraising auction part. GSBers are invited to submit "prizes" that people can bid on in a silent auction spanning 48 hours.



I offered a few things:

• cooking a meal for 4 with my friend Robyn
• a beginner's cooking lesson - learn how to use a wok
• a one hour beginner's guitar lesson (you'll notice a theme here, and it has to do with the fact I can do a lot of things to "beginner" standard only)
• a car wash
• a pancake breakfast with me and my 5 housemates next year to watch that great movie "Anchorman" ...

My items raised a few hundred bucks! Even more when you convert to Australian $$ !!

It was pretty crazy, seeing some 400 auction items closing in a mad Friday afternoon flurry ...


I ended up buying "one term's triathlon lessons" for $70 and membership to the marketing club for $20. Hey, it's for the kids ...

... but it was not to end there. The "highlight" of the auction weekend was a live auction of 20 "high demand" items. If you thought the previous auction items went for a lot of money, this part was crazy. If it wasn't for the kids, it would be pretty wasteful!

For example, people won: (yes, these are US dollars - and yes, these are students bidding and paying!)

• A photo shoot with 15 of the most built 2nd years in the wine country for $2200
• A round of golf with Charles Schwab for $1500
• A night on the town with 12 first year guys for $2900

A lot of these items were accompanied by stage demonstrations, which ultimately led to many of the guy groups taking off much of their clothing for no particular reason ...

The most expensive item? A sailing trip with 30 of the first year girls. Here they are "Advertising" their item with a dance to some sailing song (not "In the Navy" methinks) ...



... This went for a staggering $6,500 US dollars!!!

Hey, it's for the kids, ok! =) We ended up raising some $120,000 US dollars.

Whoa.