Celebrating the Museum's First Birthday

Did tonight's event spark serious donations for the museum?

This evening the Chinese Canadian Museum held a low-key fundraising dinner at Floata Seafood Restaurant in Vancouver's Chinatown. The event marks the one-year anniversary of the museum's opening, which also coincided with the 100th anniversary of the 1923 Exclusion Act, when the Canadian government refused the entry of ethnic Chinese people into the country until 1947.

Tonight's event was called Spark Community Dinner and it had all the trappings of a big gala -- the invitation encouraged people to wear Chinese outfits, and some 800 people turned out including politicians from all three levels of government. Interesting to note Premier David Eby was not available, nor was Mayor Ken Sim... was he at the Missy Elliott concert tonight?

We were all starving by the time dinner started; two people at our table didn't show up and then two more people left half way -- Elenore Sturko who is a provincial-level politician and her aide -- so only six of us had food for 10 people. 

The museum needed to raise money to keep itself going, but a raffle where C$50 for three tickets isn't going to raise a lot of cash. The museum was too shy to ask for more money beyond the raffle and individual donations.

But then Bob Rennie stepped up. He is the real estate marketer who bought the Yip Sang building, spent C$22 million to renovate it and then the provincial government shelled out C$25.5 million to purchase the building, the oldest one in Chinatown.

Rennie came on stage and immediately got down to business. He spontaneously asked the biggest sponsor of the dinner, Onni Group onto the stage and said that if he himself donated C$10,000, would Onni do the same? 

They immediately had C$20,000 and now could 40 individuals donate C$500 each? or each person in the room donate C$25?

Rennie pointed out that the infighting in Chinatown had to stop, "or Hastings is going to win," he said, referring to the Downtown Eastside which is filled with homeless people and drug addicts.

That got a lot of applause. Then Rennie added he was running for mayor, which got him more applause but then he said he was just joking.

Nevertheless it took a gweilo, a non-Chinese to tell a room full of Chinese people to put their differences aside and get their act together to fight for Chinatown. Part of it is generational, but mostly it's political. He's right, but will they listen? 

And did the museum get C$40,000 by the end of the evening?