Check out the Full Event Here
Rotary Gala 2.0While the Rotary Club of St. Albert had to hastily cancel its planned major fundraising gala in mid-March, it came up with a new web-tacular version to take its place on July 7. Virtually all of the great food and entertainment remained as they would have otherwise. President Mark Dixon explained that an event company called Production World allowed them to use basically the same gala model but with two hosts who are filmed live with high-end camera gear in a studio and the guests got to view them either over video screens at home or at any of several restaurants that partnered for the occasion. “When we started meeting to talk about it, our members said that we needed to find some way to increase the involvement of the St. Albert community,” he began, recalling how members out how local restaurants could use a boost lately too. “So we had people who are signing up to be online from home but also people who signed up to be in restaurants that were also be able to see this production online. Each guest will have their mobile device, either an iPhone or an iPad or whatever they want to use, and they can log on to the Givergy platform and see the auction items and bid on the auction items. The people who were at home, they also got to select from one of those restaurants and pick a meal and we will have it delivered to their house so that was part of the experience.” Tickets were $150 and included a $50 tax receipt for Stop Abuse in Families (SAIF). The evening also helped to support Outloud St. Albert and the St. Albert Bereavement Fellowship. “We really focused in on COVID recovery because we thought that makes so much sense, particularly in our community and particularly for organizations that are supporting individuals to recover from COVID.” An online auction was live in advance of the event at http://www.givergy.ca/rotary and closed on the evening of the festivities. The final amount raised was over $50,000. |