Diamonds in the Sky Gala Update

A Special Message from FRIENDS WAY Leadership

Dear Friends and Supporters,

It is with great disappointment that we must tell you that FRIENDS WAY has made the difficult decision to cancel our September 17, 2021 Diamonds in the Sky gala. The rise in transmission rates of the highly contagious Delta variant of COVID-19 presents a significant health and safety risk to individuals in large gatherings given its expected peak around the time of our Gala. Infection control experts in our parent company, Lifespan, and FRIENDS WAY’s Board of Directors have agreed that it would be most prudent to not host such an event at this time.

We have been very excited about our plans for this year’s event and were looking forward to joining together to celebrate FRIENDS WAY. As many of you know, the Gala is our biggest fundraiser of the year, bringing in almost half of our operating revenue. We have many generous sponsors supporting the Gala and want to recognize their contributions to making the event successful. A full list of our supporters to date can be found below, and we hope you will join us in thanking these important contributors to the health of our community. In the meantime your support is more valuable than ever, as children and families experience unprecedented loss.

Unfortunately, this is the second Gala that we have had to cancel, and the second time we have tried to honor Dan Wall, former President and CEO of Bradley Hospital with the Michael E. Wiggins Leadership Award. Dan has been a tireless advocate for FRIENDS WAY when Gateway Healthcare and its affiliates joined Lifespan. His generosity in sharing Bradley’s resources and promoting the important work that FRIENDS WAY does has helped us sustain and grow the organization. Thank you, Dan.

Through the hard work of our Gala Committee and Board of Directors, we have been gathering many great items for our auction to help bring in important revenue. Our plans were to start the auction online, with the final bids culminating at the Gala. We will move forward with the online auction, with items posting through the Greater Giving platform. Final bids will be due Friday night, September 17 at 8:00 pm.

We hope that you will enjoy our auction items and find something to pique your interest (and competitive spirit)! You’ll be able to bid as frequently as you like and see who you are bidding against. Of course, direct donations will also be accepted online through the auction platform. You’ll be hearing from us again soon with auction details, and the link will be posted here as soon as it is available.

Hopefully, we will be able to come together soon to share FRIENDS WAY’s newest endeavors and hear from our families about what the organization has meant to them to promote their healing. Thank you for your ongoing support.

Sincerely,

Susan Stevenson, Executive Director, FRIENDS WAY
Melinda Gaudreau, Chair, Board of Directors
Carolyn Kyle, Chair, Gala Committee