We may not be able to gath­er in per­son next week at the Ren­ton Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter to hold our twelfth Spring Fundrais­ing Gala as we had orig­i­nal­ly planned, but the show will nev­er­the­less go on… vir­tu­al­ly! As we announced last month, we’ve trans­formed this year’s gala into an online-only event tak­ing place on the same date and at the same time that we were to gath­er in per­son to hear from dis­tin­guished lead­ers like Sen­a­tor Man­ka Dhin­gra, our Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies.

Today, we’re delight­ed to announce anoth­er gala speak­er: Red­mond City Coun­cilmem­ber Var­isha Khan. Var­isha is a ris­ing star in Wash­ing­ton pol­i­tics, hav­ing served as a del­e­gate for Bernie Sanders to the 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Con­ven­tion, the 2016 pres­i­den­tial elec­tor for Wash­ing­ton’s 1st Con­gres­sion­al Dis­trict, and now serv­ing as one of the City of Red­mond’s eight elect­ed leaders.

Var­isha Khan is sworn in as a Red­mond City Coun­cilmem­ber (Pho­to: Andrew Villeneuve/Northwest Pro­gres­sive Institute)

Var­isha’s come from behind vic­to­ry last Novem­ber was a water­shed moment in Wash­ing­ton State and east King Coun­ty pol­i­tics. Trail­ing by close to ten points on Elec­tion Night, she surged in late bal­lots and over­took her oppo­nent, a mul­ti-term con­ser­v­a­tive Repub­li­can, by the end of the first week of count­ing.

She held on to win by just six­ty-six votes.

Var­isha Khan, Red­mond City Councilmember

Var­isha is a dear friend and a hard­work­ing, aspir­ing young leader. Her sto­ry is worth hear­ing, and know­ing, and telling. We need more young peo­ple to be involved in pol­i­tics and to be role mod­els in their community.

I have always believed that young peo­ple can do pret­ty much any­thing. I start­ed this orga­ni­za­tion when I was only six­teen. I could­n’t vote then, but I could speak. And write. And lob­by. There is no min­i­mum age required to be an activist.

I’m so proud of what Var­isha has accom­plished these past few years, and I am hon­ored to be rep­re­sent­ed by her on the Red­mond City Council.

This is a chal­leng­ing time to serve in pub­lic office at any lev­el. The pan­dem­ic has dis­rupt­ed a lot of the work that cities and coun­ties in par­tic­u­lar have been doing with respect to land use, trans­porta­tion, stormwa­ter runoff, and oth­er issues.

The Coun­cil can­not cur­rent­ly meet in its cham­bers as it nor­mal­ly would to dis­cuss the peo­ple’s busi­ness because it isn’t safe. That makes gov­ern­ing much more dif­fi­cult, but cer­tain­ly not impos­si­ble. Life goes on, even dur­ing a pan­dem­ic, and the City of Red­mond, NPI’s home­town, must fig­ure out how to move for­ward as much as pos­si­ble dur­ing this time of phys­i­cal distancing.

We all could use a hearty dose of inspi­ra­tion in these unprece­dent­ed times. If you ask me, there’s noth­ing like hear­ing from a young pro­gres­sive leader to bol­ster one’s spir­its. Please plan to join us and Coun­cilmem­ber Var­isha Khan from the com­fort of home for our 2020 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala!

Get tick­ets for NPI’s 2020 Spring Gala (and FallFest!)

If you have not yet pur­chased a tick­et to the gala, you can either buy a Vir­tu­al Gala Access Pass for $25/person, or you can buy com­bined tick­ets to the Vir­tu­al Gala and FallFest for $100 (Indi­vid­ual) or $150 (House­hold). The choice is yours.

Get tick­ets for NPI’s 2020 Spring Gala (and FallFest!)

You’ll save $25 on admis­sion to both events by pur­chas­ing an Indi­vid­ual Tick­et and save $50 or more on admis­sion by pur­chas­ing a House­hold ticket.

Please note that the Vir­tu­al Gala will not be pub­licly livestreamed. To par­tic­i­pate, you must either have a Vir­tu­al Gala Access Pass or a Gala/FallFest tick­et. All pro­ceeds from the Vir­tu­al Gala and FallFest will ben­e­fit the North­west Pro­gres­sive Institute’s essen­tial research and advocacy.

If you have ques­tions, please use our con­tact form to get in touch.

Thanks for your sup­port of NPI’s work, it’s deeply appreciated.

We hope to see you — vir­tu­al­ly! — next week.