Last week, I had the pleasure of going to an awards’ gala with my fabulous boss. It was the Northern Ohio Minority Supplier Diversity Council’s 14th annual awards’ gala with the theme “Success is a Journey: Moving from Vision to Action.”

The event was black-tie and a large majority of the people did not disappoint. I mean I saw women wearing full-length, prom-like dresses with sequins and over-the-top jewelry.

The room was filled to the brim with successful, minority businesspeople of the Northeast Ohio area and I was proud to sit among them. People were abolishing stereotypes left and right in this room. Harry Boomer from 19 Action News was the main presenter who also did a short interview with the keynote speaker, David H. Segura, CEO and Founder of VisionIT, Inc. Segura was actually selected as one of the 50 CEOs to participate in a White House forum on modernizing the US government in 2010.

When it came to dinner, the meal started off with a salad with pine nuts and strawberries. It was surprisingly good. I wasn’t sure how it would go because I had never tried that blend before but the sweet and nutty flavors mingled well. For the main course, I had a glass of Riesling with the standard chicken in a cream sauce, mashed potatoes, carrots and asparagus. Those that know me know that I don’t eat meat very often, but for an occasion such as this I didn’t mind. I must say that the lemon cake was divine though. The lemon flavor exploded in your mouth. I felt a bit on the greedy side because I wanted another piece.

I loved the set up of the place. The tables and chairs were covered in black and accented with a green sash. The creative director I work with designed the auction booklet that informed the participants of what was being auctioned off. There were some great things in there. For example, one of the bigger items was a Cavs Loge and Limo packet. It was valued at $4,000. A limo would pick up you and 11 others and drive you to the Cavs vs. Kings game. I’m assuming you got really good seats. One of the smaller ones was two roundtrip tickets to anywhere in the U.S., Caribbean, or Alaska.

There were a lot of speeches. It wasn’t as bad as one would think. I believe the food in between and me taking photos with my phone helped out a lot. There was time to network at the beginning and the end along with salsa dancing. We didn’t stay for the dancing because it was getting pretty late and Westlake is quite a bit of ways from Akron.

Overall, it was a new experience and I enjoyed it. Hopefully, I will be able to go to more functions like this in the future.

And I can’t leave this post without showing you guys how I looked. Drumroll please…

Tada!

Until next time,