Dear Friends of CHOC,
These past 18 months have tested all of us.
Our patience, our resilience and our physical and mental well-being have been stretched to the limit during the pandemic. During this time of change and uncertainty we are grateful to our community of supporters for joining us in our mission to nurture, advance and protect the health and well-being of children.
As stewards of this important mission, we have been closely monitoring the course of the pandemic to ensure we are doing our part to keep our community safe. We are once again seeing a rapid rise in COVID-19 infection rates and hospitalizations among adults and children, some of whom are medically fragile youth who are too young to get vaccinated. The main culprit appears to be the Delta variant, which is highly contagious and especially harmful for unvaccinated individuals.
At the advice of our infectious disease experts, we are postponing the CHOC Gala on August 28.
We take our responsibilities as a healthcare leader, children’s advocate and role model very seriously. At the advice of our infectious disease experts, we are postponing the CHOC Gala on August 28. We want to assure you that we did not come to this decision lightly. Many people have invested time, effort and resources into making this year’s gala our best ever and we are deeply sorry for this postponement.
We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to this year’s Gala co-chairs, Suzy Elghanayan, and Lili Daftarian, for all of their hard work and dedication. We are sincerely appreciative of their creativity and commitment in working toward one of our most memorable galas yet.
We will communicate any other developments, including a new date for the new gala, as soon as possible. In the meantime, we hope you and your family remain healthy and safe—we so appreciate your strength and support during this difficult time.
If you have any questions, please contact gala@choc.org.
With deep gratitude,
Kimberly Chavalas Cripe
President & CEO
Douglas J. Corbin
Senior Vice President & Chief Development Officer
