Cabaret Night and Tshirts

World Unity, Inc. has been dedicated to its mission and vision for the past 23 years. We continue to promote our initiatives through social media, “Sing Equality across America,” campaign, public service announcement, our website and an annual diversity and inclusion leadership gala, our signature event. This all helps empower individuals and communities with the Sun poem and build awareness for World Unity, Inc.

This year with our “Singing Equality across America,” campaign we continued to invite school districts to consider introducing our song to all the music teachers in the school district and also consider performing it in a Dr. King celebration or for a special event during Black History month. Some of the school districts that signed on in Massachusetts include Boston, Cambridge, Bedford, Lowell, Needham, Newton and Springfield. Outside of Massachusetts, Chicago, IL, Pittsburgh, PA, St. Louis, MO, Charleston, SC, Clark Country NV and Stockton, CA the country. We made one modification to our program. After reviewing the lesson plans we made available we decided that one lesson plan was more effective.

For the first time we sponsored a Cabaret Night with the theme of Celebrating Diversity and Unity. We invited singers and dancers to perform at the Liquid Art House, June 21, 6-8:30PM. Guests had a great time and look forward to attending next year! We raised, $1,160.

We sponsored T shirts on Booster website to see how well T-shirts would do in generating funds. It did not raise as much funds as we hoped. After the site took their portion we were only left with $81.

We posted our PSA on our World Unity, Inc. Facebook Page to build awareness. We reached out to organizations that are fighting for equality, human rights, social and economic justice, immigrant rights, and anti-discrimination towards gay, Muslims and women and shared our PSA on their Facebook page by inserting it as a comment. The results have been great! In four weeks our reach went from 500 to close to 8,000. We also made a modification to include 30 second in the caption on the PSA. In a week the views jumped up by 100. By the end of the year we had close to 800 views.

Our 20th Annual Diversity and Inclusion Gala was a success! It was held Saturday, October 23rd at the Boston Marriott Hotel in Copley Square. This is signature event each year generates awareness, brings the community together and raise funds. The revenues generated for fiscal year 2016 totaled $36,736. The keynote speaker was Jim Geraghty, executive director at Morgan Stanley.

At the end of the year a comment was shared with me by a dinner guest who saw the Sun poem 30 years ago in the NYC subway. At the time she was experiencing discrimination as an aspiring opera singer who did not fit the image because she was short and Asian. When she saw the poem here was her response:

“Simple yet profound. Simple to everyone, profound to those who have experienced discrimination. It brought up the image and the feeling of basking in the warmth of sunshine, boosting the confidence that I am entitled to equality too.” This was a powerful reminder of the enduring impact the Sun poem has and the need for the World Unity Landmark.