Date Auction raises money while having fun

Last Monday, Vision XChange, a student organization devoted to raising money for charity through unique events like Hopkins Top Model and Hopkins Got Talent, held an event called the Date Auction. The auction, whereby representatives from 22 student groups across campus were bought off by admirers and friends in exchange for a date at one of the local restaurants, collected over $1,000, which will be used to help underprivileged girls in Nepal.

“[The Date Auction] was about spurring friendly cross-campus competition that would bring many of the on-campus student groups together, and all that for a good cause,” senior Trisha Chakraborty, one of the co-chairs of Vision XChange, said.

Indeed, the auctionees represented student groups that spanned from Greek fraternities and sororities to sports teams and culture groups. Apart from student participation, various local restaurants, Brewers Art, City Café, Mezze and Dogwood Deli to name a few, provided gift cards entitling the winning bidders to dinner with their dates. In fact, the winning bidders were given the choice of gift cards in descending order of their winning bid. For example, the bidder that bought a date for the highest price got to choose a gift card first, and the winning bidder date of the date at the second highest price got to choose next and so on. The highest bid went to senior Jacob Peters, who represented the Greek fraternity Sigma Phi Epsilon, and was sold for $136. The date to be sold for the next highest price was sophomore Aishwarya Rajagopalan, who was auctioned off for $130.

The participants of the auction, both the bidders and the dates, expressed satisfaction with the event.

“I thought [the Date Auction] was awesome; Vision XChange did a great job putting it together,” Peters said. “[It] was really successful, had a great turnout and everyone who was a part of it was really into it, not to mention that the whole thing was extremely well-organized,” Peters continued. “The organizers knew that we were there to both have fun and raise money for charity, and they made sure both of those happened.”

Senior Kyle Engelmann, who was bought for $35 for the fourth highest price, agreed. “I thought [the Auction was] definitely successful,” Engelmann said. “Vision XChange always has really unique ways of raising money for a good cause, and this was not an exception.”

An exception it was not. The Date Auction raised a total of $1141, all of which will be going to the Unatti Foundation, an organization that supports disadvantaged girls in Nepal, giving them shelter, food and education. Vision XChange got in touch with the Unatti Foundation through senior Chelsea Rinnig, who had volunteered with for the Foundation over the summer.

“I lived with underprivileged girls [in Nepal] this summer,” Rinnig said. “There, [Unatti foundation] took in 13 girls and paid for their education, room and boarding. We have three house mothers, and we send the girls to local private schools.”

Rinnig explained that the Unatti Foundation is a voluntary organization, which means that very little of the money donated to it will be spent on anything other than the well-being of the girls.

“The only people we ‘employ’ are the house mothers, who are themselves living underprivileged lives, since the director of the program takes no salary,” Rinnig said, “which means that basically all the money that’s raised from the Date Auction will be directly benefitting these girls.”

The knowledge of such direct help contributed to the participants’ positive view of the whole event.

“I’m normally skeptical of shipping money out and hoping that it helps these impoverished people,” Engelmann said. “But having a [Hopkins] student that has been there and attested to the fact that the donations are actually helping builds credibility. [Rinnig] will make sure that money goes to [Unatti] for the cause that we were promised.”

Peters’s thoughts were similar. “[The Unatti Foundation] is a really great and direct way to distribute money and protection to the generation that really needs it,” Peters said.

Rajagopalan especially felt that the cause hit close to home, since she participated in the Date Auction as a representative of a sorority.

“It was a great cause. I’m from a sorority and any cause that empowers women who otherwise cannot receive an education is of particular value,” Rajagopalan said.

In the end, Rinnig was the one for whom the Date Auction had the most special value.

“It’s great that the Hopkins community can rise to the occasion to support an organization that means a lot to me, through of course, Vision XChange, which consistently raises money for valuable causes that are enacting and affecting significant change in the world,” Rinnig said.