Why the 2019 event is private
A message from the founder and core planning group

Dear Bay Area Peace Lantern Ceremony supporter:

We, the organizers of the Bay Area Peace Lantern Ceremony, have been humbled by the growth of the event over the last few years. The first ceremony in 2002 had about 100 attendees. It grew and shrank over the years (reaching 600 participants at the height of the most recent Iraq war). In the past few years, it spread virally on Facebook and started to draw thousands. In 2017, we estimate 4,000 to 4,500 people took part.

The 2017 ceremony overwhelmed our resources. We ended up thousands of dollars short of covering our costs. Since the event depends entirely on participants’ donations — there is no organization behind it with a budget to make up for shortfalls — it fell upon us, the volunteer organizers, to absorb the loss. In addition, the amount of work involved in creating an event of such scale became more than we could manage, particularly in 2018, when several of us were much less available due to job obligations and commitment to working on the 2018 midterm elections. These challenges remain in effect in 2019.

As a result, we made the difficult decision in 2018 and 2019 to hold only a small, private Peace Lantern Ceremony for members of the core organizing team and past years’ volunteers. This approach allows us to keep the ceremony’s 18-year tradition alive while being realistic about our resources.

It also gives us time to start planning for the long-term sustainability of a public event. This will require more people to participate in the pre-event organizing. It may require hiring staff. It will certainly require retiring the 2017 debt and raising adequate funds to cover future years’ costs.

To help ensure that we can offer the lantern ceremony as a public event in future years, we invite you to help us retire the debt remaining from previous years’ ceremonies and start building a fund for next year’s event. You can contribute here: 

https://www.gofundme.com/retire-2017-debt-prep-for-2019

It was difficult to face the reality that we simply didn’t have the capacity to create a large, public Bay Area Peace Lantern Ceremony in 2018 and 2019, but after considering very carefully, we concluded it was a necessary decision. We are working to develop a sustainable plan for a public event in future years. You are invited to contribute your thinking and efforts toward that end, by joining the core organizing team, and by contributing to retire the debt and improve our capacity to cover expenses for future years.

平和 / peace,
​

Gary Gibson
​Jeff Akeley
Lani Krantz
Linda Komandant
​Mason del Rosario

Rita Maran
​Robyn Torres
​Sarah Neider
Stephanie Thomas
Steve Freedkin, founder

and other members of the Peace Lantern Ceremony core team

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