Charity Auction 2007

The Spring Charity Auction is the most important student-led annual event at the Ford School. This year's was the biggest, best-dressed and most lucrative so far. Over $15,000 was raised in a single night to help fund the Direct Action Centre for Peace and Memory (DAC) in Cape Town, South Africa. Major items auctioned off included a game of Risk with premier Ford School game-theorist Bob Axelrod, a seven-course dinner for four prepared by Ford School gourmet-in-residence, Professor David Thacher, and a "Poker Pro Tour" in Detroit with Ford School Professor Jim Levinsohn and instructors Justin Thomas and Lloyd Grieger.

All of the funds raised were donated to an organization founded by one of this semester's two Towsley Foundation Policymakers in Residence, Yazier Henry. Henry, who taught a course called "Humanizing History" while in residence at the Ford School, is a former anti-Apartheid activist and officer in Umkhonto We Sizwe, the military wing of the African National Congress. The work of his organization, the Direct Action Center for Peace and Memory, includes support for former combatants, political prisoners, torture survivors, and mothers who lost children in the struggle against Apartheid. The DAC holds workshops on anti-racism and peacemaking, and conducts the Journey of Remembrance walking tour through Cape Town's historical, social and political fault lines.