At this years Awards Dinner & Solutionary Gala, we were honored to present our activist heroes with Backbone Awards, and ramp up our "yes campaign": Solutionary Rail. We are deeply grateful to everyone who came and and celebrated this special evening with us!

Our Awards Dinner and Solutionary Gala was a resounding success! We are blown away by the outpouring of generous support from our guests and donors in celebrating dedicated heroes and artful activism, and looking forward to creating sustainable solutions. This gala turned out to be the most impactful fundraising event we've ever held -- we are deeply grateful to everyone who made this magical evening a night to remember!

People came from all over the country to celebrate and honor this years Backbone Award recipients at the Tom Douglas Palace Ballroom in Seattle. The evening started with a silent auction and accompanied performance by the Correo Aereo Trio. A delicious vegan family style sit down dinner by Tom Douglas followed, while we presented awards to six outstanding activists and change agents. The event finished up with a beautiful performance by renowned electric cellist Jami Seiber, and an inspiring call to action and "raise the paddle" to ramp-up and staff-up Solutionary Rail (our "yes campaign"). We believe Solutionary Rail is our best chance for a just transition to a clean energy future, and everyone came together in support to help make this a possible future reality!

We presented Backbone Awards to Rep. Pramila Jayapal and A. G. Bob Ferguson, as well as activists fighting to protect the orca, the immigrant children, and to end white supremacy and injustice. 

With this years Backbone Awards, we were honored to acknowledge the inspiring hard work and efforts of the six outstanding change agents:  

• Dr. David McLanahan, "Lifetime Achievement Award"
• Michelle Seidelman, "Protecting the Sacred" 
• Alessandra Mondolfi, "Virtuosic Artful Activism" 
• Phil Ateto, "Free Speech Champion" for his work 
• Rep. Pramila Jayapal, "Our Champion, Leading with Vision"  
• A. G. Bob Ferguson, "First Line of Defense" 

Huge thanks to our honorees, musicians, guests, donors, silent auction donors, Tom Douglas Kitchen, supporters, volunteers, all those who raised their paddle, and everyone who took a stand to protect what they love. This was a monumental night for Backbone, and we couldn't have done it without each and every one of you.

And thanks to Jeff Dunicliff for his photography. To see more images from the evening, check out our Flickr album.