Million Dollar Dinner 2018

 

At Multi-District Training in Austin in 2015, incoming District Foundation Chair Wally Kronzer said to me, “Palko, you need to have a Million Dollar Dinner during your year as Governor.” (or something to that affect). I jumped on it!  And thus, the dream was born and the committee formed.  Chaired by PDG Suzi Howe and Co-chaired by PDG Bob Gebhard we hit the ground running.

 

Brilliantly we decided to incorporate two Team Captains, then DGE Eric Liu and DGN Bill Palko.  We also decided that our dinner would coincide with RI President Riseley’s visit in January 2018 and that our donor commitment period would run beginning 1 July 2017 (DG Eric’s year) and end 27 January 2018.  Table Captains were selected and soliciting donations began immediately.  We had put together the dream team.  Our table captains were PDG Rhonda Walls Kerby, PDG George and Beverly Yeiter, Michelle Bohreer, PDG D’Lisa Simmons, Roger and Kim Elswick, Terry and Sarka Zieglar, Charlie and Tommie Buscemi, Alan and Stacy Brevard, Scott Rainey and Martha Bowles and Amir and Sabrina Khan.  Captains were charged with filling their tables with Foundation Donors giving at least $10K in new money in cash or a bequest to our Foundation.

 

Eighteen months of diligence and hard work came to a beautiful summation with our Million Dollar Dinner at the Petroleum Club in Downtown Houston on Saturday, 27 January 2018.  There we celebrated District 5890 Making A Difference through our Foundation.  We honored Dr. Isis Mejias, a past District Global Grant Scholar, with the Rotary Alumni Global Service Award.  We celebrated PDG Suzi Howe being presented the Rotary Foundation Distinguished Service Award.  We ended the spectacular evening presenting RI President Ian Riseley with our District 5890 Foundation Check in the amount of $3,699,687.00.

 

The success of our Million Dollar Dinner is owed to our generous donors.  Each of whom gave $10K or more in cash or bequest to our Foundation so that we can continue to Make A Difference in our local communities and around the world.  Thank you, donors, for your benevolence.  Thank you for making our Million Dollar Dinner a smashing success!