For the Joy of Giving Week, eBay India (www.ebay.in) played host to a series of exciting charity auctions for celebrity experiences and celebrity memorabilia. Some of the top prizes to be won were Lunch with Amitabh Bachchan, Breakfast with the dashing Akshay Kumar, Gym session with Salman Khan, Lunch with Raveena Tandon plus lots of other interesting celebrity memorabilia. The auctions were a great success and raised over 27 lakhs for the charites.
The series of unique Celebrity Experiences kicked off with the Research Society, Mumbai auctioning a private gym session with Salman Khan which attracted 42 bids from India,Europe & USA and had 15,804 unique visitors. The winning bid was placed at Rs. 3,52,000 by Whirlpool.
Second in the series of unique Celebrity Experiences also from the Research Society, Mumbai was the auction of Breakfast with Akshay Kumar which attracted 97 bids from India, Africa, Europe & USA and had 20,879 unique visitors. The winning bid was placed at Rs. 5,92,000 by a fan from USA.
However, the biggest and probably the best of them all, was an opportunity to have lunch with Mr. Amitabh Bachchan. Mr. Bachchan’s auction saw 55 bids from across the globe with 16,770 unique visitors. The winning bid closed at Rs. 10,02,000 and the winner is Whirlpool.
Also during the Joy of Giving Week, Bangalore NGO CMCA (Children’s Movement for Civic Awareness) auctioned an exclusive lunch date with actress Raveena Tandon in addition to cricket memorabilia. Chennai NGO AlotofDreams auctioned sports & literature celebrity memorabilia.
Team Whirlpool was the winning bidder on the Salman Khan Gym Session, the Raveena Tandon Lunch auction & the Lunch with Big B. Mr. Puneet Gupta, Director-Marketing, Whirlpool said, “We are thrilled for two distinct reasons. Firstly, the money shall go for a noble cause. Secondly, who better a person than Mr. Bachchan to motivate our employees to engage more actively in our social responsibility drives, including the latest CSR endeavour ‘ek Jodi Kapda.’ Joy of Giving Week is a great cause to get associated with.”
Ms. Deepa Thomas, Senior Manager- Pop Culture, eBay India said, ”We are delighted with the response to the Joy of Giving Week charity auctions which raised Rs. 27 lacs for our NGO partners and helped create awareness amongst 80,000 eBay visitors who visited the auctions. This is a key annual event on our charity calendar and we hope to benefit many more NGOs next year.”
About the Joy of Giving Week
The Joy of Giving Week is a “festival of giving” that aims to bring together Indians all across the country and abroad through different acts of giving- money, time, skills or resources. The goal is to convert it into a fully publicly owned festival, just like Diwali, Holi or Thanksgiving, none of which are owned by anyone. The Week was launched in 2009 and will be held every year starting on a Sunday and ending on a Saturday, with October 2 part of that week.
