ONLINE AUCTION TO BENEFIT LOCAL NONPROFIT

Celebrity and cast items to help RFB&D's NJ Unit

In conjunction with its 2008 Record-A-Thon and 50th Anniversary Gala, the New Jersey Unit of Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D) will hold an online auction of celebrity autographed memorabilia and tickets for television programs.

Proceeds from the auction will benefit the New Jersey unit of the volunteer nonprofit organization which is the nation's educational library serving people who cannot effectively read standard print because of visual impairment, dyslexia or other physical disability. In the last year, the New Jersey Unit's nearly 400 volunteers recorded more than 9,750 hours of educational materials for the organization's members. Its Educational Outreach Center provided support for more than 400 Garden State schools that use RFB&D's recordings in their classrooms.

The online auction will take place from Monday, April 7 through Thursday, April 17 and will be accessible at www.ebay.com/mbcharity. Tickets for auction will include: The Colbert Report, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, Dancing With The Stars, The Ellen Degeneres Show, Inside The Actor's Studio and Last Call With Carson Daly. There will also be autographed memorabilia from Andre Agassi, Beyoncé, Cyndi Lauper, James Taylor, Josh Kelley, Marie Osmond, Rod Stewart and Valerie Bertinelli, as well as the casts of 30 Rock, Battlestar Galactica, The Biggest Loser, Dance Wars, Gossip Girl, How I Met Your Mother, The Little Mermaid and Young Frankenstein.

The New Jersey Unit's Record-A-Thon will take place Thursday, April 10 through Wednesday April 16. Nobel Prize winner in Economics Dr. Eric Maskin will join the unit's regular volunteers who will donate extra time during the event. In addition, several local authors will record from books they've recently published including Dr. Norman Itzkowitz of Princeton University who will be reading from his new young adult book Grigory Rasputin: Holy Man or Mad Monk?. Other special guest volunteers include Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study recording from his recent book A Many Colored Glass: Reflections on the Place of Life in the Universe, Albert Einstein Professor of Science at Princeton University Dr. Paul Steinhardt reading from his book Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang and Dr. Melvin A. Benarde of Temple University recording from his book Our Precarious Habitat...It's In Your Hands.

The unit's 50th Anniversary Gala will follow on the evening of Thursday, April 17 at the Hyatt Regency Princeton. Several individuals, companies and foundations that have been important in the founding and growth of the unit will be honored.

The New Jersey Unit of RFB&D is on the campus of St. Joseph's Seminary in Plainsboro at 69 Mapleton Road. For more information about any of these events, visit www.rfbdnj.org or call 609-750-1830.

Record-A-Thon 2008 Home Page