Assalaamu Alaykum:
Alhamdulillah. CAIR-SFBA’s 22nd Annual Banquet last Saturday was a tremendous success, thanks to our supportive community members, allies, and volunteers. We had over 1,200 seats reserved – making it our largest banquet ever!
Young, Gifted and Black performed several pieces telling the story of anti-black racism and the experience of fearing for one’s life in police interactions. Dr. Altaf Husain engaged the attendees, addressing the need to support both the reactive and proactive work CAIR does on a daily basis. He shared the importance of the community’s continued investment in its very own civil rights organization, especially in light of the year’s toxic election cycle.
Sheikh Omar Suleiman, who recently founded the Yaqeen Institute, delivered the evening’s keynote address. He shared his experience mobilizing community members and urged them to continue to show up for diverse causes. The evening closed out with a comedic performance from Jeremy McLellan, an activist from the South who has used comedy and social media to push back against Islamophobia.
Five awards were presented to individuals whose work emulated CAIR’s mission:
- Promoting Justice Award to Assemblymember Bill Quirk who introduced the California Assembly Resolution recognizing Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month in August 2016.
- Enhancing Understanding Award to Moina Shaiq who first approached Assemblymember BIll Quirk’s office about recognizing Muslim Appreciation and Awareness Month and founded “Meet a Muslim” in an effort to connect more friends and neighbors to the Muslims in their own communities.
- Volunteer of the Year Award to Ilyas Kiziloglu for his consistent and reliable efforts as a young, aspiring intern in our office this past Summer. His participation increased our capacity to reach community members with civil rights and civic engagement information.
- Gamechanger of the Year Awards to Fakhra Shah and Jehan Hakim, both of whom worked really hard this year to increase civic participation in the Muslim community. Fakhra worked diligently to ensure that several Muslim high school student delegations from San Francisco attended the annual Muslim Day at the Capitol and Jehan organized voter registration drives in Arabic speaking communities in advance of the June Primary Election and the November General Election.
We are truly blessed to have raised $251,836 at this year’s event, but our goal for the event was $300,000. That leaves us $48,164 short.
Can we count on you to help us continue to grow our services and work? We don’t know what will happen on Election Day, but no matter who wins, our work is cut out for us.
Your support of $25, $100, $250, $1,000, $5,000, or any amount you can donate, will help CAIR-SFBA continue its work of strengthening our collective voices and advancing the community together.
Thank you all for your continued support of CAIR.
Sincerely,
Zahra Billoo, Esq.
Executive Director
P.S. For those who attended, we want to hear your feedback about the Banquet. Please let us know what you thought by completing our CAIR-SFBA 2016 Annual Banquet Survey.