FIJI Green Gal: From our amazing event manager, Paul, here’s an update about a very special FIJI Water-sponsored charity event called Gift Bags for Good. Learn more about what happened last night in New York City, and find out how you can still help no matter where you are! And a big thanks to Ariston Anderson at the Huffington Post for her shoutout.

Last night FIJI Water presented the charity event Gift Bags for Good. It’s an auction of donated gift bags (or “swag“) from awards shows, celebrities, TV shows and handbag makers; and 300 guests came to examine the fab merch displayed all around them, bid against each other to take the gift bags home and by doing so raise money for two important charities, Water Partners International and Clothes Off Our Back.

I couldn’t believe the guest “gets” we got! Sherri Saum from HBO’s In Treatment, who had donated one of the bags; Zach Roerig from Friday Night Lights; and Paul Iacono (from the upcoming Fame) showed up to support the event. Terry Serpico (Army Wives) came and donated a gift bag he had just received that day – what a class act! Thank you, Terry!

Sherri Saum

A gorgeous Sarah Leshner (Amazing Race 13) brought a bunch of reality show pals, including the new Survivor Tocantins winner, James “JT ” Thomas, and runner-up Stephen Fishbach!

JT and Paul

JT was just voted the Survivor winner on Sunday, so he’s a busy guy right now, but he told me he loved that the event was helping Water Partners, who provide safe drinking water to people in developing countries. Maybe being on Survivor helps you appreciate the things we take for granted, like clean drinking water, even though Water Partners estimates that 1 billion people don’t have it.

Water Partners photos from Tigray, Ethiopia

Sarah (love her!) also brought recent Survivor Ben “Coach” Wade and Survivor alumni from the Panama and Guatemala seasons. Reshma Shetty from USA’s Royal Paines, Denise Vasi from ABC”s All My Children and Wendy Diamond from Animal Fair also came – thank you all! And thanks to special guest, our favorite blogger FIJI Green Gal for stopping by to check it all out.

Bidding on bags got quite heated for some of the lots! Maybe guests were put in the mood by the 10 Cane Rum and Red Bull Cola cocktails, the Corona and Corona Light beer, the freshly made Cafe Bustelo espresso and (natch) the FIJI Water? There was especially frenzied activity surrounding the MTV Networks bag, the Lucky Shops VIP bag, the NY Fashion Week show package (donated by FIJI Water) and the W Hotel Hoboken suite for July 4’s NY Fireworks. Bidding guests hovered over the bid sheets protectively in case someone outbid them, and when that happened they quickly wrote their name in again with a higher bid. Drama!

MTV Networks bag

Lucky Shops VIP bag

NY Fashion Week Package from FIJI Water

Only some of the bags we showed at the event were for silent auction. The others, including donations from The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Ugly Betty and many more will now be auctioned online at http://www.clothesoffourback.org/ through June 3. Water Partners and Clothes Off Our Back (COOB) share the online auction proceeds, and COOB donates its share to children’s charities around the world.

Go bid!