On June 11, 2019, we celebrated our 25th anniversary in a HUGE way and blew past even our own expectations! We welcomed over 200 guests at the Historic Hibernian Hall and shared our big news: we raised over $170,000 for IISC’s work and our Innovation Fund for Social Justice & Racial Equity! Thank you to everyone who showed up for racial equity with smiles, dancing shoes, financial contributions and by spreading the word about our efforts.
At the event we shared a video about IISC’s beautiful history (see below).
Over the course of the beautiful evening we:
- Heard some deep and powerful spoken word from Bernadine Desanges
- Reflected with Thomas Rice and Kelly Bates on IISC’s past, present, and future
- Honored four social change, justice, and racial equity leaders: Cynthia Silva Parker, Dr. S. Atyia Martin, the National Parent Leadership Institute, and Food Solutions New England
- Got the low down about moving from presence to power with Rashad Robinson from Color Of Change
- Grooved to music from The Christman Collective, Violin Viiv, and the turntables of DJ Whysham
- Had delicious bites from Ethnica Catering
- And Phillip Tomlinson choreographed our team in an awesome Flash Mob!
We want to offer deep gratitude to all our event sponsors and Innovation Fund contributors: The Barr Foundation, IISC Founders Circle/Interaction Associates Friends, The Boston Foundation, The Hyams Foundation, Ford Foundation, Berkshire Bank, the William Casper Graustein Memorial Fund, Interaction Associates, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Schott Foundation for Public Education, Jobin-Leeds Partnership, the Garfield Foundation, Eastern Bank, Insource Services, TSNEMissionWorks, DentaQuest Partnership for Oral Health Advancement, David Straus, Camille Kerr, Christopher Harris & Therese Giglia, Amy Hosford-Swan, Yves Nau, and Zenub Kakli.
We also send deep thanks to our Event Planning Committee: Christopher Harris (Chair), Adwoa Asare, Kelly Bates, Lawrence Barriner II, Fernanda Oliveira Costa, Marianne Hughes, Ramani Sripada, Melinda Weekes-Laidlow, and Shana Bryant Consulting.
And all of our Honorary Committee members: Ayanna Pressley, U.S. Congresswoman and Honorary Committee Chair, Akaya Windwood, Amaad Rivera, Barry Rosen, David Straus, Edgar Villanueva, Elissa Sloan Perry, Dr. Rev. Gloria E. White-Hammond, john a. powell, Kalila Barnett, Kim Janey, Boston City Councilor, Marianne Hughes, Dr. Mary Travis Bassett, Peter Gibb, Rev. Dr. Ray Hammond, Sandra Cotterell, Sanjiv Rao, Susan Misra, Suzanne Lee, Thomas Rice, Tito Jackson, Former Boston City Councilor.
We have seen what 25 years of work can do: we crunched the numbers, and since our founding have worked with over 125,000 people! You can help us impact even more people in the future when you contribute to our Innovation Fund for Social Justice & Racial Equity!
And last but not least, Kelly has shared about some lessons learned in collaboration and equity in planning our event. See her thoughts in her latest blog post, IISC’s 25th Anniversary Celebration: Lessons Learned.