GLIDE’s annual Summer Gala was brimming with San Francisco spirit! The program opened with a performance by our beloved GLIDE ensemble and closed with a drag performance by Curveball.  

“GLIDE is on a mission of spreading unconditional love in this great city. It’s about making the lives better for all San Franciscans in the T.L. and outside,” said our President & CEO, Dr. Gina Fromer, welcoming the crowd.   

Our Young Professionals Committee, organizes this gala every year, as a way of inspiring the next generation of Bay Area change-makers to engage in the life-saving work of GLIDE. (Are you a young professional who would like to support GLIDE’s work? Email youngprofessionals@glide.org  to join the quest for justice and unconditional love).  

Poet Ramona Laughing Brook Webb received the Janice Mirikitani Legacy Award and spoke movingly about how GLIDE’s support of her work inspires her through tough times. Flor Martinez, founder of a nonprofit that focuses on the human rights of immigrants, received the Cecil Williams Legacy Award. 

“It means so much that you see me,” said Flor, before urgently requesting that GLIDE support bills moving through Congress that would give more immigrants a path to citizenship.

Senator Scott Weiner also addressed the crowd, provoking cheers with the line, “GLIDE’s values are San Francisco’s values are American values!”  

At the conclusion of the program, the dance floor opened, enlivened by some professional dancers wearing costumes bedazzled with iridescent lights. Folks danced the night away accompanied by DJ King Most’s music, and enjoyed a variety of party entertainments: from tarot cards to a photo booth to bites of GLIDE’s famous fried chicken.