2018 Annual Dinner - Faith Action Network

FAN’s Annual Dinner – Sunday, November 18, 2018

These are just a few of our photos from Sunday’s event in Renton. To view the full albums, visit our Facebook page. Shoutout to our amazing photographers, John Stean and Patrick Scriven, for their great work!

Our hearts are still full from this year’s Annual Dinner; ripples of gratitude are overflowing the riverbanks and rushing to the sea with hope! Nearly 480 people warmed the Renton Pavilion while 55 people gathered in Spokane for their first annual, simultaneous dinner. What a night of inspiration and beloved community! We are grateful to Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal and travel author and TV host Rick Steves who rallied the crowd with courage for the kind of social change we can make together.

Congresswoman Jayapal spoke words of thanks for all gathered and Faith Action Network: “Thank you for your strength in blowing forth the winds of change, from ripples to waves. And thank you for your moral certitude in difficult times. We will win!”

Rick Steves reflected on his recent travels to Guatemala and Ethiopia, and he shared his encouragement for the advocacy work we do together: “If we wanted to make our country greater than we could ever imagine, we would unleash the values in this room; we would turn the power of this great nation into these values… This is who we are–we care, we give, we can change the world. But we need to advocate. Advocacy is recognizing it’s okay to get political with your faith values.”

We are overwhelmed with gratitude for the hundreds of you who donated in generous amounts large and small to help us meet and exceed our $50,000 matching challenge by Rick! Final tallies are still being totaled, but we know the contributions and pledges made that night in Renton and Spokane exceed $65,000—joyfully matched by Rick to power our work into 2019! We are humbled, grateful, and know that together as FAN we can unleash our vision!

We were honored to highlight the witness and commitment to justice exemplified by our awardees:

Legacy Award to Ron Young, for a lifetime of peacemaking and crossing boundaries for justice.

Legacy Award to Verlene Jones Davis, for a lifetime of labor for equity and justice.

Justice Leadership Awards to Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network and Northwest Immigrant Rights Project for persistent leadership for immigrant rights.

Advocating Faith Communities Award to First Congregational Church, Bellevue, and St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church, Bellevue, for creating Ripples of Change for their homeless neighbors.

Interfaith Leadership Award to Mary Stamp in Spokane for 35 years of publishing The Fig Tree and bringing interfaith voices to the public square.

As we give thanks, we affirm the inspiration by Robert F. Kennedy for our theme, cited in our spring 2018 annual report: Each time we stand together for our convictions or strike out against injustice, we “send forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

We recall these words from Catholic Worker founder Dorothy Day: “People say, what is the sense of our small effort? They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time. A pebble cast into a pond causes ripples that spread in all directions. Each one of our thoughts, words and deeds is like that.”

With gratitude from Renton to Spokane, and all the wonderful landscape and cities in between where FAN gathers with justice advocates, we echo artist and poet Cleo Wade: “Our righteous acts create immeasurable ripples in the endless river of justice.”

May blessings overflow wherever you live. We look forward to continuing in this statewide, interfaith movement with you!

Thank you to all of our sponsors!

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