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2018 ILCM Gala: Thanks for your support!
Posted on Jun 08 2018
Our 2018 ILCM Gala was a great success! About 450 people came to the Minneapolis Marriott City Center to join us in person. We shared good food and fellowship, enjoyed the music of Balung Getih, danced to Salsa del Soul, and honored leaders who have worked for immigrants and refugees.
We had our strongest showing of event sponsorship ever, raising over $60,000, to support ILCM! THANK YOU! At the event itself, between the Silent Auction, Raffle, our Fund-A-Need, and a generous match from Bill Mahlum and Donna Allan, an additional $25,000 was raised to help defend the rights of immigrants and refugees across Minnesota.
At the Gala, Dr. Ayaz Virji shared his inspiring message of courage and love in the face of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim prejudice. Dr. Virji and his family live in Dawson, a small town in western Minnesota. They moved to Dawson in 2014 because of his desire to practice what he calls “dignified medicine” in an underserved area. Then came the Trump election in 2016, and a rising tide of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant sentiment.
“I didn’t come to rural America to teach about my religion or to teach about Islam. That’s very personal to me. I don’t like talking about it,” he says in a video explaining his move into the public eye. “But the bottom line is, if not me, then who?”
His talks focus on the theme of “Love Thy Neighbor,” but he does not shy away from calling out injustice.
“You can sense I’m angry about that,” he said in one of his early public talks. “Wasn’t Jesus angry when he went into the temple and knocked over the tables of the money changers? He was angry. Injustice should make us angry! Okay? I am angry about the election. Because there is injustice there, and I have felt that within my family. And with the burning of mosques? And something like 150 bomb threats to Jewish synagogues? We should think.”
You can see and hear more of his story here.
To everyone who attended, to everyone who volunteered, who donated silent auction items, who sold raffle tickets, who contributed, who sponsored, who supported us in this wonderful event, we say:
Thank you … Mahadsanid … Muchisimas gracias … Ua tsaug … Ta bluh doh mah … Vielen dank … Merci beaucoup … Takk skal du ha … Tusen tack … and so much more!
