Dinner Success!

After months of drafting, planning, inviting, and more planning, the 26th Annual Awards Dinner is done. As the first community gathering since the Community Conversations following the loss in 2009, it was healing for everyone to be back together to rekindle the relationships formed, and remember the good times of 2009.

It was an amazing evening with over 650 guests - the largest crowd to date. We listened to some of our State leadership, such as Congressman Mike Michaud and Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, talk about the importance of marriage and our continued work. Senator Dennis Damon received the Larry Connolly award recognizing his outstanding legislative leadership for sponsoring LD 1020. Jimmy Lucibello was presented the Cameron Duncan Award recognizing his accomplishment, commitment and service to the HIV/AIDS community. The Faith in Action Award was presented to both the Religious Coalition for the Freedom to Marry and Catholics for Marriage Equality for their endless support and outreach to members of faith communities. Their outspoken presence in 2009 made it clear that Bishop Malone and the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy were not the only voices in the community to speak on behalf of their faith. And we presented awards thanking some of our many exceptional volunteers in both the Legislative and Referendum campaigns.

The evening ended with a lifted spirit and a newfound drive to win marriage back for all Mainers. We know the work we need to do in 2010 to get us ready for the next fight and we hope everyone is ready to jump in and help re-elect our pro-marriage legislators, start identifying new supporters, and continue talking to everyone you know about why marriage is important to you. We’ve learned over time that it is through these personal one-on-one conversations that we will change hearts and minds to win marriage. We can do this, and we will.

We have many to thank for their help, be it volunteer hours or generous sponsorships.  For starters, thank you to the Dinner Committee – chair Cecelia Burnett, Matt Dubois, Jenna Ginsberg, Rodney Mondor, Brian Randall, Imani Nissanka and Heather Palmeter. Thank you to our volunteers who served at registration, acted as ushers, and helped out with any other assignments that were requested of them – Whitney Clegg, Joanie Kunian, Holly Bartlett, Lawn Cameron, Suzanne Blackburn, Ann Di Mella, Evan Dalzell, Jason Aucoin, Toho Soma, Cindy Staples, Karen MacGeorge, Cody Perkins, Jamie Wren, Kylie Groat, Kim Chesterfield, Liz Callahan, and Jeremy Kennedy. 

A special thank you goes to our Diamond and Platinum sponsors whose support made this event possible: The University of Maine Farmington, Tabitha King, Donald Sussman, Jim Bishop and Steve Ryan, Diversified Communications, Andrew Fenniman, Five County Credit Union, The Portland Phoenix, and Time Warner Cable.  

And finally, thank you to Amy Salerno, our photographer for the evening, who turned the photos over to us within days , and to Jo Moser, photographer, and Michael Podolsky, editor, for putting together a wonderful slideshow of Jo’s  images from the campaign.

 If you’d like to purchase any of the photos from the Dinner, please visit Amy’s website - www.amysalerno.com– or call her at 207-332-0552.