Grand Opening Jacksonville Office
Equality Florida has been working really hard to establish a home in North East Florida to continue to fight the good fight for full equality. The community of Jacksonville has been graciously welcoming.
We had a great time at our little shindig! Over 100 people attended the party. DJ TopFlight played great music, there was delicious food, and a variety of people, from our dedicated 'regulars' to our beautiful new faces. Glad to host so many great people from so many local organizations who came out to celebrate with us. Over a dozen people signed up to volunteer at One Spark, while we collected 8 new faith supporters and 11 new business supporters, supportive of passing an all inclusive Human Rights Ordinance (HRO). Many generous people donated office supplies and gave monetary contributions.
And many things from our wish list were delivered! We collected 3 microwaves, 3 coffee makers (one of which is a Keurig!), one mini fridge, 3 office chairs, 4 monitors, pens, pencils, pads, notebooks, paperclips, one coffee table, tons of cookies and, from eyeballing it, close to 200 reams of printer paper. We are good to go on printer paper! And we made around $150! It was a great and warm reception. Within such a wonderfully diverse crowd, we met a lot of military veterans. One who served 35 years in the Navy, Dee, who is now retired and has transitioned into her authentic self. She is excited about working with us during Equality Florida's Lobby Days to talk to our state legislators about workplace protections for the LGBT community. Javier Hernandez, our Florida Competes organizer, said that he really enjoyed meeting and getting to know the Jacksonville community. He's looking forward to making more supportive business and faith connections. Everyone we met was happy to have us in the neighborhood and shared insight about where to go and who to be in touch with to help with our efforts. We got a lot out of this event and will use this momentum to keep working hard toward passing the HRO in Jacksonville and the Florida Competitive Workforce Act for all Floridians!
Our volunteers, interns, and staff worked really hard to pull off a great event. Thanks to a lot of staff and volunteer support from Michael Farmer, Ida Eskamani and Tracy Greenleaf. Our local interns Coricia Payton and Morgan Smith hustled it out as well. They helped clean up the office when we first moved in, helped paint it, and reorganized it for the opening. Truly great interns. Our friendly neighbors, JASMYN and Jacksonville, Florida Black Pride, local LGBT organizations, also chipped in a bunch of support. Couldn't have pulled it off with all these great people. All together, we had fun and the office looks fantastic.
Check out photos of the event at these links:
CityXtra: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.893205444034772.1073741938.174379449250712&type=1
Equality Florida's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/equalityfl
Drop on by, anytime!