Students gathered in the Marvin Center Ballroom to bid on an assortment of items, ranging from housing lottery numbers to weekend getaway packages, during Martha’s Millennium Mardi-Gras auction Friday night.
The auction, sponsored by the Residence Hall Association, raised more than $2,000 for housing scholarships. Students entered a raffle for the No. 1 and No. 11 housing lottery numbers, and bid on lottery numbers two through 10.
Freshman Jared Moskowitz, the highest bidder for the No. 7 lottery pick, said he and his roommates placed bids at the auction in order to get a good room.
We got shafted, and our number sucked, and we would have wound up in Crawford, Moskowitz said.
Moskowitz said he and his three future roommates had set a maximum spending limit of $3,650. Moskowitz bid $3,500 for the No. 7 lottery pick.
I feel like an idiot because I don’t know what kind of people would spend money on this, Moskowitz said immediately following the bidding. This is unbelievable, but you know we wanted it, and that’s what we did.
Sophomore Gina Nunez said prior to the auction she was planning on spending about $600 dollars for a lottery number. Nunez ended up paying $2,500 for the No. 3 lottery pick. Although she ended up bidding much more than she had intended, she said it is worth having her choice of whatever room she wanted for next year.
Some students felt the concept of auctioning lottery numbers and the amount of money spent on lottery numbers was absurd.
It’s a little bit ridiculous, but it’s a great event raising money for housing scholarships, and if people can afford it, then more power to them, sophomore Ben Getto said.
(The price of the lottery tickets) was definitely not worth that much, freshman Kelly Robinson said.It was definitely for people who were rich.
But some students said they were not interested in paying thousands to buy one of the top lottery numbers. Many students chose to enter a raffle for lottery Nos. 1 and 11
Freshman Alisa Becker won the raffle for the No. 1 lottery pick with the first raffle ticket she bought.
I’m shaking, I really didn’t expect it, Becker said immediately following the announcement that she had won.
Other items that were auctioned included various donated items from residence halls and GW organizations. A silent auction was also held for items such as an autographed photo of Orioles pitcher Scott Erickson.
RHA earned a total of $37,151 dollars during Martha’s Mardi-Gras celebration. RHA president Alan Elias said that he was extremely satisfied with the turnout and the amount of money raised from the event.
