By Jeff Swoboda

As his name was called, Sergio Marrero walked slowly onto the stage at afterHOURS Saturday night to Ginuwine’s “So Anxious” and the deafening screams of about 250 students.

DJ Alex Diaz stepped up the beat and the president of the Latin American Student Organization (LASO) proceeded to proverbially “tear down the house” with breakdance moves, raising $170 for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts in the process.

Over 380 students over the course of the night checked out LASO’s “Merry Mardi Gras” date auction, doling out almost double the amount of money organizers expected to raise.

“The date auction went better than expected,” said Roberto Cabral, a middler computer engineering and entrepreneurship major, as well as the primary organizer and a LASO member. “We only expected to raise $1,000.” The event raised $2,111.

The energetic crowd bid on dates strutting their stuff on stage as well as gifts from local donors.

“The idea is to get, well, aesthetically pleasing people to raise money for a good cause,” said Marrero, an industrial business major.

Twenty-four dates were auctioned off, including representatives of LASO, Sigma Alpha Lambda, Northeastern Society of Black Engineers and the Student Government Association (SGA), amongst others. Bidding started at $5 for each auctionee and went as high as $170, Cabral said.

Cabral, who is new to planning fundraisers, said he was pleased by the response to the event he’s spent the last two months coordinating.

“This was actually my first event that I had planned,” Cabral said.

Cabral contacted leaders of other campus organizations to recruit possible dates for the auction.

“At first, I thought the organizations would be receptive. We sent out a mass e-mails, but didn’t get many responses, so we attended open group meetings to recruit members for the auction,” Cabral said. “We did get 12 girls and 12 boys, so I figured I didn’t need to be in the auction myself.”

The hosts, Samantha Sang, a middler sociology major, and Shomari Miller, a junior marketing major, danced with the auctionees, told jokes and worked the crowd, playing bidders off one another and taunting the lower bidder to keep things going.

Caitlin Campana, a middler marketing major and vice president of programming for the Resident Student Association, was cheering in the audience for the first part of the auction.

“People were going for very large amounts of money … and people were generally having a great time. It makes it worthwhile and it makes you want to do it again in the future,” Campana said.

Bidding got intense on some of the higher lots, with a loud cheer going up with every new bid. Some winning bidders were friends of the auctionees, some were boyfriends or girlfriends and some were just looking to meet somebody new.

In a short intermission, students got food, drinks and gold watches. Two local vendors, Ultra Diamonds and E.B. Horn, donated five watches. All watches were auctioned off for about $50 each.

When the watches were sold, the intermission ended and students filtered back to their seats.

Rico Savage, a senior psychology major, was to be auctioned off near the end of the evening.

“I’m going to be auctioned off last, so nobody will have any money left, so I’ve really got to give everything I’ve got,” said Savage, shortly before being moved to the first round of auctionees.

Savage removed his shirt, his tie and his belt to woo the crowd, procuring $20 for Katrina relief.

Like Savage, auctionees danced, strutted and removed clothes to varying degrees to please the bidders.

“It’s just a good time to raise money for a good cause,” said Ashley Adams, president of SGA and an auctionee who raised $125.

Adams was shy on stage, standing off to one side and politely declining the host’s invitation to dance.

But others weren’t as hesitant to dance, and at the conclusion of the auction, the music turned up for the after- party. Reggaeton artists HighRollers Brujo ‘ D-Voiz turned in live performances for the party, which was intended to be the “icebreaker” for auctionees and their purchasers.

“Many people stayed for the after-party – there were almost 300 people there, and I’m happy that groups came together,” Marrero said. “It’s for a good cause.”

The donations will go directly to the Hurricane Katrina Relief Effort through Northeastern’s account.

As a result of technical difficulties, a slideshow of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that was created for the auction was unable to be viewed.

However, it is available online at www.laso.neu.edu