Medical Students Auction Services to Benefit
Second Chance/Last Opportunity

Dinner for two prepared in your home – 30 cans of soup;
Homemade brownies – 40 cans of peas;
Full day fishing trip – 369 cans of corn;
Canned food to fill the shelves in a crisis intervention center – priceless.

That sums up the 2^nd Annual “Get Lucky for Your Greens” Auction sponsored by the Women’s Health and Medical Society at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM) Bradenton on March 16.  Using canned goods as the primary exchange, supplemented with cash by some bidders, over 2,800 cans of food and $530 were raised to benefit Second Chance/Last Opportunity (SC/LO), a Sarasota-based crisis intervention and prevention center. 

According to April Glasco, Executive Director for Second Chance/Last Opportunity, the timing for the fundraiser couldn’t have been better.  “Our shelves were empty,” said Glasco.  “I didn’t know what we were going to do and I just prayed.  This is just priceless.” 

SC/LO’s mission is to provide homeless and low income individuals and families in crisis with whatever it takes to get back on their feet.  “We help them meet their immediate and essential needs, like food and clothing.  Then we provide them with life management skills to prevent them from falling back into that situation again,” said Glasco.

Veronica Davis, president of WHMS, said this year’s auction proceeds were at least five times greater than last year.  “This year was an unbelievable success and went completely above and beyond what I could imagine,” said Davis. 

Donated items included a wide variety of services to be performed by LECOM Bradenton medical students, faculty and staff.  Dinner for two cooked in the home of the winning bidder, a full day fishing trip, and kite flying at sunset on the beach were some of the most highly sought after items. 

The opportunity to toss a pie in the faces of various faculty members also stimulated highly competitive bidding.  (LECOM Bradenton’s six faculty members can look forward to making good on their part of this bargain on April 1 at the LECOM Bradenton booth at the YMCA’s Healthy Kids Day.)

The award for receiving the highest bid of the auction went to first year student Sasha Noe and her husband, Marc Noe of Florida Fishing Charters for a full day of fishing.  Second year students Joshua Lynch, Andrew Graf and Ryan Radakovich purchased it for 369 cans of corn.

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