People in the entertainment industry have been coming up with creative ways to fundraise for workers affected by the ongoing strikes for months now, but a new eBay auction took things to a new level—and prompted fans’ imaginations to go into overdrive in the process.
The Union Solidarity Coalition recently announced an intriguing line-up of auctions, intended to financially benefit below-the-line union crew members while waiting on Hollywood studios to strike a fair deal with WGA and SAG-AFTRA and allow everyone to get back to work.
Some of the auction items offered by entertainment pros, while awesome, are in line with the types of things we normally see in charity auctions—Zoom calls with celebrities, tickets to the Film Independent Spirit Awards, movie props, etc.
But others get way more creative. You can bid on a watercolor portrait of your pet from John Lithgow, take a pottery class with Busy Philipps, or even have Adam Scott walk your dog. Possibly the most widely discussed item up for auction is “a fifteen minute existential conversation with Natasha Lyonne and her dog Rootbeer while doing the Wednesday NYT crossword puzzle.” Hell yeah!
Not only is this an awesome show of solidarity from celebrities who are willing to give up their time to benefit the crew members who keep the industry running, but some of the offerings are so clever that they prompted fans to start coming up with their own ideas for celebrity auction items they’d love to see in the future. And quite frankly, they’re incredible.
Some fans may have gotten a little too...revealing about their personal interests while coming up with ideas, not that we can blame them.
And if any celebs wanted to spill some secrets for charity, well, there would definitely be buyers.
At least if the Union Solidarity Coalition decides to host another auction, they have a very solid idea of exactly what people are hoping comes up on offer!