Planning a (Green!) Night of Miracles

In the Fall of 2022, Greenlight Solutions started their journey with Envision You (Victory Over Violence) to help survivors thrive, find sustainability, and move forward by organizing a Night of Miracles fundraising gala, “Survivors Finding Their Way Forward” at the Mesa Convention Centre on April 29th, 2023.
The gala will include dinner, special guests, a silent auction, awards, and fun with Westwood Mesa High School to honor the partnership of the voucher box program for all household items we have for survivors.
We partnered with Kimberly Miner, the CEO of Envision You. Through personal experience, Kimberly knows how challenging it can be to get back on one’s feet after unforeseen domestic circumstances. For the past 25 years, she’s been paving the way for other women and individuals in the community to access the resources they need to do just that. She helps people claim their lives and self-confidence, and move forward with an empowered purpose. We were honored to work with her.

Our mission was to support event outreach, event greening, and content creation efforts for their April fundraising event. Envision You wanted to incorporate sustainability into its event, increase attendance, and create video testimonies. Our partnership targets UN Sustainable Development Goal #5, Gender Equality because we are empowering women as they transition out of violent relationships.
We began by splitting our project into three phases or objectives. Objective 1 was event outreach.  Our goal was for each team member to connect with 10 contacts per week. We reached out to local businesses and organizations for sponsorship and donation matches. Our focus was to connect with the best businesses, organizations, and people. Consequently, we compiled lists of local enterprises that related to Envision You’s mission. By using the power of the web, LinkedIn, a list of contacts (from Kimberly), and previous event donors we were able to easily surpass our goal. Thus far, we have made initial contact with hundreds of individuals and numerous organizations. This step took the most time and collaboration, as we created and revised the list of contacts.

Objective 2 aimed to make the event sustainable. Luckily, GreenLight Solutions can make just about anything green! We agreed on four focus areas for the event that could incorporate sustainability: A Culture of Sustainability (Sustainability Communications / Education), Waste Diversion, Transportation, and a Green Menu. The major goals covered by this focus area are:
·Encouraging the use of already durable materials (ex. stickers for reusable water bottles, etc.)
·Establishing waste partnerships & supplies as needed.
·Recruiting & training bin guarders
·Providing bin signage for the bins caterer
·Using sustainable decorations
·Encouraging/rewarding attendees for carpooling/using public transportation (promoting sustainable Transportation)
·Choosing the most sustainable menu options

Our final objective was to develop virtual content to show how Envision You’s mission contributes to sustainability by empowering affected women and those supporting them to develop their sense of self-confidence, self-worth, and self-esteem. The goal was to create video testimonials to show during the event itself, one for the start of the event, the middle, and the end. Kimberly introduced us to survivors who had gone through the Envision You program and seen its impact on their lives. We provided them with a curated list of questions to understand Envision You’s impact. We are currently in the process of interviewing and recording them.

This semester showed us the power of planning, coordination, and follow-up. Seeing these moving parts come together is one of the miracles that we hope attendees will feel while attending the gala. We look forward to coming together as a community to support survivors and Envision You’s mission to empower them.  

Written By: Harshit Tyagi|Collins Carrington