If you’re looking to be a superhero this Halloween, skip the yellow spandex and put your powers — and money — to good use by participating in OCCC’s silent auction for the 2011 United Way campaign.

Beginning Monday, Oct. 24, and lasting throughout the week, gift baskets and other items created and donated by OCCC students and employees will be up for bids along the walls outside the campus bookstore.

This is the second year OCCC has raised money for the United Way by auctioning off gift baskets and other goods, said Student Relations Director Erin Logan. “Last year we raised right around $3,000 from the silent auction alone,” Logan said.

Because of the group effort involved in making gift baskets, she said, the silent auction allows anyone who wishes to participate in the United Way campaign an opportunity to do so.

“If you can only give $2 to a basket, you can buy $2 worth of candy to help fill it and you’ve still made a big impact,” Logan said.

“(That basket) might sell for $60 or $70.” Lower-priced items also allow a wider variety of people to bid on them, she said.

“That $2 donation offers an opportunity for a wide variety of price ranges on the baskets, so everybody has the opportunity to buy something,” Logan said. “We’re trying to be as fair as possible and reach as many people as we can.”

This year’s theme for the campaign is the power of one gift, so Logan said she is encouraging participants to create items with a super-powered theme.“Everything we’re doing has a superhero theme like Spider-Man or Aquaman,” she said. “We’re asking people to donate baskets that have to do with a theme.”

Logan said possibilities for baskets include the “Transformers Car Care Kit” with items to detail your favorite Autobot or Decepticon, or “He-Man’s Basket” for all things testosterone-filled.

If you’re feeling short on creativity, she said, individual donations will also be accepted. Last year’s donations included a Dell laser printer, two tickets to see the musical “Wicked,” and a massive Jansport backpack that measured six feet tall and four-and-a-half feet wide.

“A student won it, put it on his back and walked out of the building with it on,” Logan said. “It was the funniest thing ever.”

Although she cannot divulge what has been donated so far, Logan said an email will be sent out to all employees and students previewing some of the items to be up for auction as the event draws nearer.

“I can tell you now that the average cost of baskets that we have received so far is $250,” she said. “We’ve got some fantastic stuff this year.”

For more information or to participate, email Logan at elogan@occc.edu or call 405-682-1611, ext. 7821.

To contact Whitney Knight, email onlineeditor@occc.edu.