It would be understatement to say 2020 was a 'different kind of year'.
Nothing could really prepare our La Senora community
for the need to abruptly cancel all of the 2020 Season’s programming we’d worked so hard to plan for
our friends and neighbors. One by one falling
victim to the Coronavirus were our lectures, films, and even our outdoor concerts. The field trips for school children so vital to our mission of telling California history also had to
be abandoned. We were in a state of 'dismay'. Until a member, commiserating with us over the cancellations, asked if we thought we'd be able to continue La Senora's access to programs through our many collaborative educational
institutions. We discovered that while Covid-19 might have shuttered our onsite programs, it had led to enriched Zoom events for lectures we'd once had to ration to be used as ‘thank you benefits’ for large donors. Once online, La Senora could invite more attendees with no in-person risk ---and no long drives thru rush hour traffic
either!.
As you contacted us during the year, we identified your
broader interests and arranged access for you to a wide spectrum of University keynote lectures by
noted authorities in their fields. Live streamed Concerts were brought to you by our long time associated organizations. Rarer still, we took you into a highly privileged audience for the National Academy of Sciences panel
discussions with what had become the ‘household
name speakers', Gupta and Fauci and into the labs of the equally distinguished but lesser known leads
of international research and pharmaceutical teams. Several
brave members were even invited to participate in early stage Vaccine Trials --
and earlier this month we all celebrated with the scientific community the remarkable achievements brought about by this otherwise dark cloud Pandemic. All of the substitute programming access of 2020 was
provided at no cost to our long term supporters. We really missed the ‘neighborliness’ of
seeing you at events but we were so grateful to have a way to say thank you via our
collaborative organizations' programs making this unusual Season of Access possible.
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