BY JOE COURTER
The Board of the Civic Media Center will again host its annual SpringBoard Fundraiser at the Matheson Museum on Friday evening, March 30.
The event will include a dinner, incorporating a big selection of food from many of our area’s fine independent restaurants, and a whole array of raffle and silent auction items to bid on.
Additionally, as of last year, we are incorporating the Jack Penrod Award for Peace and Justice ceremony into our event. This year, the two awardees are Kimberly Hunter and Katie Walters. Both have strong CMC ties. Kimberly, in addition to working on the CMC Oral History project, is a paid staffer with the Alachua Coounty Labor Party and has also been coordinating actions with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. Katie is a past coordinator of the CMC, a staffer at Bread & Roses Women’s Clinic, and currently chair of the Gainesville International Socialist Organization chapter.
And as always, the CMC invites a keynote speaker for a talk and Q&A. This year’s guest will be Rob Lorei, the news director of Tampa Bay’s great community sponsored radio station, WMNF, who will speak about “Keeping Progressive, Non-corporate Media Relevant in the Modern Communications Landscape,” as well as looking ahead to covering this summer’s Republican Convention in Tampa. From being a little pipsqueak station, in the past three decades, WMNF has grown to be a major force in the Tampa/St. Pete area, and Rob has been with them from the start.
The SpringBoard is always a great gathering of our community, and the CMC will have advance tickets available by March 10. Advance tickets are $10, and the requested donation at the door will be $15-20. Doors will open at 6:30p.m. for socializing and dinner, the Penrod Award will run from approximately 7:30p.m. to 8p.m., followed by our speaker. Following that, we’ll have more socializing, announce the winners from the raffle and auction, and aim to have the event wrapped up by 10p.m.