The Notre Dame community has the opportunity to support the South Bend community by participating in the Breen-Phillips Hall 32nd annual Meal Auction on Thursday. During the event, students will have the chance to bid on dining with various “campus celebrities,” as well as gift baskets, gift cards and several other prize items. All profits from the auction will go to Meals on Wheels of St. Joseph County.
Co-chair and sophomore Jennifer Flanagan said the event is centered around the theme of community.
“Meals on Wheels is a local charity, so we’re giving back to the South Bend community, and it’s also branching out to the Notre Dame community with all of these professors and coaches that are taking students into their homes or out in South Bend and treating them to dinner,” she said.
Flanagan said other prizes being raffled or auctioned off include gift certificates to local restaurants such as CJ’s Pub, Le Peep and Rocky River Tap & Table. Other items available at the auction include Bose wireless speaker, a $100 Lululemon gift card, tickets to this summer’s PGA Tour, tickets to multiple Chicago Blackhawks games and tickets to a Chicago Cubs game.
According to the Breen-Phillips Meal Auction Facebook event, several celebrity meals being auctioned off are with various Irish head coaches, including football coach Brian Kelly, women’s basketball coach Muffet McGraw and men’s basketball coach Mike Brey.
Other prizes being auctioned off include a private tour of the two new residence halls led by vice president of student affairs Erin Hoffmann Harding, a home cooked meal or Irish tea at the Fiddler’s Hearth with Assistant Director of Social Concerns Seminars Kyle Lantz, a class with True Balance Yoga founder Steve Krojniewski and a home-cooked, traditional South African dinner at professor Anré Venter’s home.
Students can pay for auction items with Domer Dollars, Venmo, cash or checks.
Procuring donations from local restaurants “has been a lot of work, but it’s definitely been worth it,” Flanagan said. The auction has evolved since its early years, and up until last year, only celebrity meals were auctioned off, and the event was a live two-hour auction.
“That was hard because it’s hard to get students on a school night to commit two hours,” Flanagan said.
This year, the auction will last from 4 to 9 p.m., during which students can stop in to the Dooley Room at any time and fill out bid sheets and raffle tickets. At the end of night, if any events are still being bid competitively, the auction will go live.
“Typically it raises a couple thousand dollars, so we’re hoping it’ll raise that for Meals on Wheels again,” Flanagan said.
Flanagan said there will be special events throughout the night to entertain those who come to the auction. From 4 to 5 p.m., campus representatives from Rockstar Energy Drinks will be at the auction distributing free drinks and merchandise. From 5 to 6 p.m., campus representatives from KIND Snacks will be giving out granola bars; from 6 to 7 p. m., students who buy raffle tickets will get free berries donated from Meijer’s grocery stores; and from 7 to 8 p.m., campus representatives from Vineyard Vines will be giving out free merchandise.
“The most important part is that it’s for a really great charity; I think that’s why we’ve gotten so many awesome donations, and I’ve been surprised at how generous South Bend has been,” Flanagan said. “It’s brought BP together, it’s brought some really cool professors together, so ultimately we hope it raises a ton of money for Meals on Wheels.”
