RFK auction offers star-studded experiences

For those hard-to-please people on your holiday gift list this year, consider some unusual presents: the chance to hang out with Bill O'Reilly, sing with Aretha Franklin or tour the Capitol with Nancy Pelosi.

Those are just some of the items on auction this month to benefit the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights. Proceeds will fund the center's efforts both domestically and globally.

Among the items is musical advice from Clive Davis, a private pottery lesson with Marcia Gay Harden and a nonspeaking role in the next Farrelly brothers' movie. There's also a personal tour of a floor of the NBC network at Rockefeller Plaza, led by Luke Russert, son of the late "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture between Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

The center was founded by Kerry Kennedy, daughter of the late New York senator and U.S. attorney general. She was 8 when her father was assassinated in 1968 while running for president.

On the 40th anniversary of his death, Robert F. Kennedy is still a presence in the state he represented as senator from 1965 to 1968. The online auction follows the renaming of New York City's Triborough Bridge as the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge.

Kerry Kennedy said the center's recent human rights victories include helping migrant workers win wage increases with fast-food employers, working with victims of Hurricane Katrina so they can return home and introducing human rights education to 40,000 students in Italy's public schools.

Kerry Kennedy will be there for two of the auctioned experiences: dinner and a movie with Alec Baldwin and dinner with Martin Sheen.

And she hopes to go along for the afternoon of sailing with her brother Max off Hyannis Port, Mass., which includes a tour of the home Robert and Ethel Kennedy shared. Minimum bid: $9,250.

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For Subscribers

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCBP leaders cut out of Trump ad buy decision

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAmerican passenger drafted goodbye texts to her family as Flydubai plane plummeted

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCornell rape allegation pushes embattled New York prosecutor into national spotlight

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAbdul El-Sayed tries to woo MAHA voters as Democrats seek inroads with RFK’s supporters

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKratom-like substances are popping up in a typically benign supplement

FOR SUBSCRIBERSGOP super PAC increases its spending for Sen. Jon Husted in tough Ohio race

FOR SUBSCRIBERSRecords reveal tumultuous marriage between slain New York Times executive and wife

FOR SUBSCRIBERSFrom clean energy warrior to ‘wall of shame,’ James Talarico reverses on a fossil fuel money pledge

FOR SUBSCRIBERSCongressional staff planned official trip with luxury stops in Italy and France weeks before election

FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane

FOR SUBSCRIBERSOpenAI CEO Sam Altman to skip congressional hearing on rogue AI agents

FOR SUBSCRIBERSKey DOJ lawyers departed Trump ‘grand conspiracy’ probe amid pressure to produce, source says

FOR SUBSCRIBERSTrump’s new AI chatbot often links to a site launched under Clinton 26 years ago

FOR SUBSCRIBERSAt MAHA summit, industry CEOs the movement once vilified take the stage

FOR SUBSCRIBERSThis Paralympian has two goals: Win medals and give away $500,000 to her teammates

The Web-based company organizing the auction, Charitybuzz.com, is not charging any premiums on the auction prices. The auction runs until January, with individual lots closing at different dates in December.

Some of the other lots include a signed guitar from Carlos Santana, a chance to meet The Who's Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey (and take away a signed guitar), seeing Andrea Bocelli perform in Tuscany and a dinner with James Earl Jones, Ruby Dee and Harry Belafonte.

One of the more unusual offers is from Kerry Kennedy's brother Robert, an environmental lawyer. He's donating an afternoon of falconing near his home in Bedford, N.Y.

Perhaps topping that is the egg of another bird, an ostrich, signed by South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The minimum bid is $650.

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