Silent Auction Makes Noise In Blacksburg

By Carissa Nichols
September 22, 2008

Blacksburg community members showed support for the Koriko Moyie Women's Group in Kenya's Ngeta Village by attending the African benefit, silent auction and dinner held at Gillie's on Sunday. 

The money raised will go toward funding the "Corn Mills for Kenya" campaign.  The campaign sponsors the women of the Ngeta Village who encounter obstacles such as providing for their families and witnessing the effects of AIDS in their community.

Risper Awuor, a Virginia Tech graduate student from the Ngeta Village, said the Koriko Moyie Women's Group has already lost two of its members due to the AIDS virus.

According to Awuor, although most of the money raised will go toward funding for the corn mill, some of the money will go toward shelter for the power mill, education for the children and adults of the village and burial expenses for those members who have died.      

The Women's Center at Virginia Tech and the International Women in Need, (IWiN) a student-run non-profit organization at Virginia Tech, teamed up with a two-year goal of raising $7,000 for the village in Kenya.  Penny Cook, volunteer and operations coordinator of the Women's Center, said about $2,300 had already been raised before the benefit, silent auction and dinner were held.

When asked if IWiN and the Women's Center would end the program at the end of the year Cook said, "I don't see abandoning the cause...we will go until we have the $7,000."  

 "We were worried [because] we didn't sell [many] tickets beforehand," Jessie Meltsner, special projects coordinator of the Women's Center said. "Clearly people came though."  IWiN and the Women's Center sold tickets at the door as well as raffled an African quilt and a statue.

According to Kathy Lokale, program coordinator of the Women's Center, the event sold out every ticket plus ten.

The event featured authentic African food with pans of spiced raced, plain rice, vegetable stew, lentils, potatoes, cabbage, kale and sugar cookies for dessert. 

Among the dishes served was chapatti, a type of flat bread that Cook said took two days to prepare.  Awuor and a couple of Kenyan women prepared the food.

Kellyn Montgomery, a graduate geography student of Virginia Tech, heard about the event through a list serve and came because she is "really in support of
African women [in need]." 

Montgomery and others had the opportunity to silently bid on items.  Bidders wrote their offers on a sheet of paper located by each item for sale.  Items up for auction included photographs, a canvas painting, a checkered cloth and other handcrafted items.

Also, a number of canvas paintings hanging on the wall of the venue are being auctioned off online through ArtatEsperanzaMeansHope.org.  

Awuor originally approached IWiN and the Women's Center with the project idea of helping her village. Meltsner said the dinner could not have been done without the Awuor and the women of the community.  Awuor said, she is "very much excited about the enthusiasm with the women of the Women's Center and IWiN [and she] feels humbled and so encouraged by them."