Sandy Hook Promise Gala

One of my favorite events in the office so far has been being able to attend the Sandy Hook Promise Gala. The company I’m with does non-profit advising along with political consulting and one of their clients is Sandy Hook Promise, a non-profit centered around preventing gun violence created by those who lost loved ones at the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012. One of the projects I was given by one of our senior associates was to help with organizing the politicians who would be attending the event.

Initially, this involved making phone calls to each Senator and Congress representative’s office to speak with their scheduler to confirm that they received the invitation that was sent out in February. If I was able to reach a scheduler, I followed up on invitation and asked if the Senator or Congress representative was able to come. If they didn’t have an answer at the moment, I followed up by sending the invitation again to the scheduler via email from a Sandy Hook Promise email account. I ended up making around 200 phone calls to Democratic and Republican Senate and Congressional offices alike. At the start of my internship I was a bit nervous to make phone calls however now that I’ve done so many from this project it’s become very natural. After following up with each of the attendees over the phone and through email, my majority of my project was completed so I continued to do other tasks around the office for the rest of the week but I was in charge of keeping up with the Sandy Hook Promise email when more responses would come in. I worked on a Google spreadsheet to update the RSVP list with who would be attending the reception and the dinner and their guests as well. I responded to questions regarding the Gala over the email as well.

My favorite part of this project was being able to attend the Gala itself this past Wednesday. I knew this would be the only time I’d ever be able to attend the Gala as the tickets were $1000 and upwards so I was excited to take advantage of the unique opportunity. Throughout the reception I was stationed near the VIP reception where the Senators and Congress representatives went and helped direct people to their VIP reception. It was really cool to see all of the people that I had corresponded with throughout the previous weeks actually come to the event. During the actual dinner program I was allowed in the back to watch the speakers which was such a great experience. I also helped collect donation cards at the end of the event and thanked guests for coming. Helping with this Gala has definitely been one of my favorite personal contributions so far.