A gallery of photos from Saturday’s Blue Gala at the Punta Gorda Isles Yacht Club was published in the Charlotte Sun, Wednesday, April 17th.

(See the photos at the Sun)

The following email was sent by CCDEC Chair Patrick Hurley to members and friends following the Blue Gala:

Dear Friend,

Thank you to all of the attendees, donors, contributing artists, and numerous volunteers who made the 2019 Blue Gala Fundraising Dinner our biggest ever!

Oh, what a night!

We’ll catch our breath and tally the numbers to report back the final results within a few days.   I can assure you now, we had a fantastic evening, and we will be competitive in 2020.   A few known numbers include:

• Donations, ticket sales, etc were about 60% higher than last year’s bonanza.
• 221 Meals Served
• 24 Student and Volunteers sponsored
• Record Donations for Silent Action and Donor Matches.
• You wildly exceed the matching fund.
• The gross collections from the event exceed last year’s annual income of $60,000

You all build our community.  

We’ve been fortunate to have had a massive outpouring of volunteers and supporters for the 2018 election cycle.  We have to acknowledge that while we didn’t win all of the big races, we can within a whisker for Senator and Governor.

To ensure we don’t overlook the exceptional progress from 2018, I’ve included a few key numbers below.  Our commitment to action will grow our Democratic community, maintain our outreach momentum, and propel us to victory in 2020!

• Keynote Speaker Nikki Fried won the election for Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services.  She is our first female Commissioner and is one of four members of the Florida Cabinet.
• Democrats won 13 U.S. House of Representatives seats for a net gain of 2 important seats that helped the Democrats gain control of the House.
• Democrats won seven Florida House of Representative Seats for a net pickup of 5 seats.
• Andrew Gillum came within 32,500 out of over 8 million votes cast for Governor.  That margin was four-tenths of 1%.
• Senator Bill Nelson’s loss was even smaller, being only 10,034 votes short of a victory.

We will continue building our Democratic community, and you play an part in that effort.  We will be announcing new opportunities to Volunteer My Way, and the Blue Ribbon club of critical sustaining donors. If you wish to make a donation to the Blue Gala Matching Fund, we’ll keep that posted for a short period.