Above: Frank & Carol Cannata at The Cannata Report’s 38th Annual Awards & Charities Gala.
Our 39th Annual Awards & Charities Gala is looming and will be held on Thursday, November 7, 2024. This is the 26th year that we have been raising money for a worthy charitable cause.
At our 14th Annual Awards Dinner, held in New York City at the Marriott Marquis in 1998, we announced the addition of a charitable component. For the first time, we introduced a charity that we asked attendees to support Childhelp, an organization supporting battered women and children. The organization had four locations throughout the United States, and donations from that event supported Childhelp in Arizona. We raised $35,000 and felt we could do better than that. From 1998 to 2003, we raised $3.3 million, averaging $132,000 annually. For that, we must thank an industry that has been incredibly generous to not only our charities but also many other charities.
Supporting Patient and Medical Research at Our Annual Awards & Charities Gala
Our approach since the beginning has been to focus on patient and medical research. Our most common charity has been cancer research and patient care. For 10 of those 25 years, we collaborated with the Jimmy V Foundation. Those were mostly in the early years of our charitable efforts, and we raised approximately $700,000. The reason for the lower number was our average audience for the Annual Awards & Charities Gala was 150 people. It has slowly risen to host 250 attendees. We started with donations from members of the audience to 250 people, giving us $800 per seat at last year’s Gala. This year it is $1,000 per seat.
Raising Money for Breast Cancer Research
The event is now referred to as The Cannata Report’s Annual Awards & Charities Gala. We prefer if we can dedicate the fund raising to an individual in our industry. We regret that we have not been able to maintain that approach. However, we are pleased to say that this year’s charity is for Research at Hackensack Meridian Health for Breast Cancer Research. We are dedicating this effort to all the women in our industry that have suffered from this insidious disease. Allow us to give a simple statement of what this type of cancer is and does to all women based on information and statistics from the American Cancer Society.
Breast cancer is a disease in which abnormal breast cells grow out of control and form tumors. If left unchecked, the tumors can spread throughout the body and become fatal. Breast cancer cells begin inside the milk ducts and/or the milk-producing lobules of the breast. Overall, the average risk of a woman in the United States developing breast cancer sometime in her life is about 13%. This means there is a 1 in 8 chance a woman will develop breast cancer.
If you attend our Annual Awards & Charities Gala, you will find 85-90 women attending our event. That means 11-12 of them may be have to deal with this form of cancer. Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in women. Only lung cancer kills more women each year. The chance that a woman will die from breast cancer is about 1 in 40 (2.5%).
Breast cancer death rates have been decreasing steadily since 1989, for an overall decline of 42% through 2021. The decrease in death rates is believed to be the result of finding breast cancer earlier through screening and increased awareness, as well as better treatments. However, the decline has slowed slightly in recent years.
Those are the raw numbers and that is why we are asking the good people in our industry to support the research efforts that we hope will eventually find a cure for this dreaded disease. At the same time, we are honoring all women in our business. You may be aware that in previous cancer research efforts we have honored individual women that have fallen due to cancer. This is not really a new or different effort.
Your Support Matters
There is only so much we can ask of an audience of 250 people to give. This year we are doing an outreach to everybody who wants to protect the women we work with every day, prior to the Gala.
We will also commemorate women that were lost to all forms of cancer like Sandy Lowery, the wife of Applied Innovation’s John Lowery. We will begin this effort by giving $5,000 in her name. That comes from everybody who works for The Cannata Report to kick off the campaign.
Every noble effort has courageous leadership to make the arduous task a reality. This year we have five women executives who have joined in our effort of pre-event solicitation. They are:
- Jennie Fisher, group president office technology, GreatAmerica Financial Services
- Laura Blackmer, president dealer sales, Konica Minolta Business Solutions U.S.A.
- Toni Gorveat, CEO, Cobb Technologies
- Chelsey Bode, CEO, Pearson-Kelly Technology
- Adrienne Bastinelli, East region director of marketing, UBEO
We will have a sellout once again this year. As of April 29, we have sold 15 tables for the Annual Awards & Charities Gala. These are manufacturers, vendors, and dealers who have already committed to attending and giving generously to charity. Our focus for this outreach will be to those who cannot attend the Annual Awards & Charities Gala. We ask them to donate and if they choose honor someone who collaborated with them or was related to a victim of cancer. Make your checks payable to Hackensack Meridian Health Foundation. We will post every check that chooses to honor someone with their gift. Please mail your checks to:
The Cannata Report, P.O. Box 180 Hamburg, NJ 07419
Whatever you can give will go directly to charity. Most of all we will be giving the amazing women who give so much to our workplace and seldom get recognized for their efforts. For those of you who are able to attend our Annual Awards & Charities Gala, we look forward to seeing you on November 7. For those of you who are unable to attend, but still want to make a difference by donating to this worthy cause, we deeply appreciate your support.
An Additional Reminder
Although we highly value the charitable component of our Gala, the awards are another important element of the evening. Please be sure to participate in our dealer survey. You can find the link here.
