On Saturday, the Palace Theater played host to the 15th annual Ko-nosioni Charity Auction. Erika Per-ez of Hamilton’s Swank decorated the Palace elegantly, with umbrellas hanging from the ceiling and multi-tiered food displays. The food itself was catered by the Colgate Inn. Jazz played in the background to fit the “Spirit of the Roaring 20’s” theme. The night’s auction was broken into three parts.

“We tried to fill up the pro-gram with a variety of low to high priced items for every bud-get, and ended up with around 200 items between the raffles and silent and live auctions,” President of Konosioni senior Lindsay Strand said. “We had extraordinarily generous do-nors this year who gave fabulous items including sports tickets, golf rounds, signed memorabilia and vacation packages, as well as lessons, baked goods and local gift certificates.”

The first 45 minutes of the auction was devoted to cocktails, socializing and the first block of the silent auction. The first round had items such as Caribbean cook-ing lessons, a Trudy Fitness Center guest membership, voice lessons from junior Erika Fritz, a pearl bracelet and a Mom’s Best Friend package, complete with two mas-sages from Hamilton Massage and babysitting from sisters of the Delta Delta Delta sorority. Popular items from the first round were a custom Colgate Men’s Lacrosse stick and handmade necklaces.

The second block of silent auc-tion items began afterwards. These included valuable gifts such as a bottle of Prosecco and two stop-pers, Chobani gift basket and 50 coupons, including $250 to the Hamilton Inn and more.

“The first round is like a sand wedge or a golf club. The second round is a round of golf on Nantucket. It is similar but the stakes are higher,” junior Andrew McCormick said.

While both of the silent auction blocks were occurring, one could purchase raffle tickets for local prizes such as tanning ses-sions at JJs, $100 to the Colgate Bookstore and 50 pounds of wash and fold laundry service from Bizzy Bodies. The raffle ticket winners were announced before the live auction began.

“Our silent auction was incredibly suc-cessful, and we had a great turnout early on in the night. Although our ultimate goal is to raise money for the community, it is also about putting on an event that everyone can participate in and have a good time…Al-though our numbers came in lower than last year’s record-breaking $27,000, all money raised at the auction goes to very deserving local organizations where every dollar truly counts,” Strand said.

“Last year’s success was really attribut-ed to the fact that they were able to capi-talize on the Alumni Council’s presence at the auction. While we tried to coordinate similarly this year, unfortunately their dinner ran late and they were unable to attend,” Strand said. “Although the live auction suffered slightly without them, the amount we raised is on par with years prior, when the auction typically raised between $10,000 and $15,000. I’m very proud that despite our slight schedul-ing issues, our members were all flexible, helpful and ultimately we were able to raise an incredible amount of money in a single night.”

Some of the most popular items dur-ing the live auction were a seafood dinner for four with Dean Beverly Low and a date with one male and one female member of the 2013 Konosioni society.

“The item that sold for the most was a week-long stay at a condo in Cape May, NJ. It was actually a donation from senior Sam Myers’ grandmother, and a place that she holds very close to her heart, having spent a lot of time there growing up. I know she was thrilled to see it go for over $1,000,” Strand said.

Strand estimates that the final amount raised will be closer to $17,000. This money will be distributed through an extensive grant allocation process by the Konosioni Class of 2013 in the fall. Each year, the second gen-eration of Konosioni members get to pick a theme to distribute their funds to. The 2012 Konosioni class focused on health and well-ness when distributing their $27,000 and gave money to local places and funds such as Community Bikes, Mary Rose Center, RSVP of Madison County and more.

“The best part of the night for me was see-ing members from different parts of the com-munity come together for a fun evening, and watching the members of Konosioni work together to pull off a beautiful event,” Strand said. “After spending countless hours prepar-ing auction details in the weeks leading up to the event, we were very organized going into Saturday, which really helped in allow-ing us to socialize and enjoy the success of the evening.”

“Being a member of Konosioni over the past year has been extremely rewarding, and I am so incredibly proud of our group and thankful to have been part of such an amaz-ing group of leaders,” Strand said. “My advice to the future leaders of Konosioni is to be cre-ative and have fun with the group. They are in a position to take the group’s positive mo-mentum and continue to strengthen its pro-grams and traditions. They’ve already been throwing around some great ideas and I’m sure they will hit the ground running come next fall. You will have to stay tuned to see what fun plans they have in store.”

Contact Morgan Giordano at [email protected].