The devastation caused by the earthquake and tsunami brought together the student residents to help Japan in this humanitarian crisis. The charity event, in which students gave musical performances, was co-hosted with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). The sale of tickets started two days before the big day on 23 March 2011. Committed to the slogan “A little dime, and a little time , you can help the homeless and helpless Japanese!”, all student organisers involved were determined to make the most out of the three days given to them to raise the money.

Almost HKD3,000 were raised by the food-for-charity sales organised by our very own ResLink writer Ash Kumar. The food consisted of mouth watering delights, like dumplings, curry fish balls, samosas, home-made cheesecakes donated by Hall 1, brownies and fish balls donated by the Residence Master of Hall 5 - Mrs. Bonny IP, cookies and mango lassi prepared by the students. The Residence Master of Hall 3 - Dr. Cheung Chor-yung - gave a generous donation of HKD1,000.

One of the enjoyable parts of this event was the innovative idea of holding a charity auction sale. Students decided to auction their time and talent. It started off with a bid of HKD150 for 2 hours of Yoga lessons from Yogaraj but then the bidding gained momentum with a bid of HKD400 for a date with a student named Maria. Arnaud Flick, one of the organisers, decided to auction two hours of guitar lessons, which were sold for HKD200. Vincent Koop, the buyer, boldly stated that “If you’ve heard him play then you’ll realise that he’s worth 10 times more!” A basketball and a pair of table-tennis rackets signed by President Way Kuo were enthusiastically bought by the sport buffs of our residents. The pick of the auction was the sale of 20 minutes ride as a passenger in a Lamborghini Murcielago which, after long and competitive bidding, was sold to Lidian Kee (one of the organisers) for a whopping HKD1,200.

The event ended with some take-aways given to the attendees in the form of Homey Kitchen vouchers, sports gear from the PE Section and book coupons from CityU Press etc. Finally, Marek Zelazny, an exchange student from the Warsaw School of Economics who led from the front, thanked all the contributors on behalf of the team by stating, “Words cannot express my great appreciation for your contribution and involvement in the ‘Help Japan- Turn the Wave – charity event.’ The counting, auditing and banking-in of the donations into the designated bank account of MSF have been completed and I am very happy that we raised HKD27,000.” Yes, we exceeded the target of HKD10,000 up to almost triple the amount.

As they say, “Dream and dedication are a powerful combination” and CityU students have shown the reality of this quote by making this beautiful dream of helping Japan come true through sheer dedication. Kudos to all the people involved in contributing towards this dream by committing themselves to it. Cheers!