Community in Bloom: IMPORTANT NOTICE!

~ Join us for a VIRTUAL party benefiting WestSide Baby ~ Support LOCAL families and #enddiaperneed

Dear Community, The recent concern with the novel coronavirus (COVID -19) outbreak and its effect on our community has weighed heavily on my mind. The health of all families must be our first priority. After hearing the feedback of our table captains and guests, and reviewing the King County Health Department and Center for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations to keep all of us healthy and safe, we have decided to carry on with our Community in Bloom: A Brunch to Benefit WestSide Baby on March 22 at 1pm, but will host it virtually instead of in-person at the Sheraton! Same time, same goal to ensure we can maintain crucial operations to serve the most vulnerable in our community, different venue! In the coming days, we will provide the new online venue, which will feature the total goal we rely upon from this event to keep the most vulnerable in our community safe, warm and dry. Families experiencing basic needs gaps in King County are already at an increased risk to this public health crisis due to lack of health insurance and an inability to miss work, so meeting our fundraising goal for this event and being able to continue our work uninterrupted is more important than ever! In our virtual event, each existing table will be able to set their own goal, then track how much they raise on March 22! At the end of the event we will be able to see whether we have collectively met our goal! In the meantime, here is how you can still continue to prepare for the event, just in a new format: Share this message with your tablemates and decide how you will “gather” – we invite you to get creative by meeting as smaller groups in your home for brunch, setting up your own table video chat during the event, etc. Within our virtual event, we will have the opportunity to get social with other tables by posting photos and videos. If a guest you previously invited was not able to attend, make sure to share the virtual event with them – one upside of this format is the opportunity for more people to participate and give! Keep your eye out for how to buy your virtual raffle tickets leading up to the event for a pair of Alaska Airlines roundtrip airfare or your choice of amazing stay/vacation packages! Plan to attend the virtual event on March 22 at 1pm – there will be an exciting announcement you won’t want to miss AND you’ll be able to find out if you won a raffle prize! We recognize that many organizations have chosen to postpone their spring events, and while that is the right call for them, we are choosing to move forward virtually because WestSide Baby already relies upon Stuff the Bus launching in May, and a fall WineDown fundraising event to engage our community in keeping children safe, warm and dry year-round. We hope you will join us for Community in Bloom to ensure we meet our goal now – your support allows families to focus on the health of their children. Donating funds, collecting basic needs items, and showing up for these families is what builds a strong community, and it starts with each of us.

Community in Bloom A Brunch to Benefit to WestSide Baby Sunday, March 22, 2020 1:00-2:00pm Virtual Event details forthcoming to join in live!

On a final note, I want to express my deep gratitude to each member of our community dealing with the continued changes of this outbreak, including our community partners. I also want to stress that COVID-19 is not specific to any race, nationality or ethnicity and that misinformation can create fear, hostility and makes it harder to keep our community healthy. We will be in touch in the coming days with the virtual venue information to join us on March 22. Our deepest gratitude for all you do to help us keep children safe, warm and dry.

With gratitude,



Sarah Cody Roth, Interim Executive Director