Notes from the annual gala

We held our annual muplagala last weekend. It was the first time we tried to do it as a sit-down dinner rather than a stand-and-mingle reception, a deliberate shift, so that the evening could feel like what it is: a meal with neighbors, a chance to look back at what the community has done together, and an honest conversation about what comes next.

The numbers

We won't bury the lede:

• 212 attendees, the largest group mupla has ever gathered in one room, Muslim and non-Muslim, longtime families alongside first-time supporters.
• $148,400 raised, enough to fund the food pantry for the full next year, nine named scholarships for the youth program, our refugee resettlement support for two families, and the parenting workshops through the next four quarters. Full breakdown in the upcoming annual report.
• 23 new recurring donors, including 14 at the Friend tier and 9 across the higher tiers.

We want to thank every volunteer who packed gift bags, washed dishes, gave a ride, set up chairs, or stayed late to clean. We want to thank our keynote speaker, Sister Maryam Hasan, for the reflections she offered on how a faith community measures progress.

What we said, what we heard

The gala is, among other things, an honest accounting. We laid out three things we did well last year and three things we did poorly, the same three we share in our annual report. The room heard both. Parents asked hard questions about youth programming. Longtime donors pushed back on our Zakat reporting format. A first-time attendee asked why we run a parenting workshop and not a parenting support group. We don't have answers for everything; we try to have answers for what we promised we'd do.

What's next

The money raised on Saturday is the easy part. The harder work is distributing it well, the Zakat committee's first session of the new fiscal year is this week, and the food pantry's expanded grocery budget goes into effect next month. If you'd like to see exactly where your dollars are going, the spring annual report will be published in the next few weeks on our programs page. Until then, Shukran for being part of what this community is.