Now that a Fairfax County businessman has put up $1 million to host an inaugural weekend for hundreds of people who’ve hit hard times, he and his planners may face an even more challenging task in deciding who will attend.
Earl Stafford, a churchgoing Baptist and chairman and chief executive officer of a Centreville tech company, said Thursday he intends to invite about 1,000 Americans to The People’s Inaugural Project to be held Jan. 19 and 20 at downtown D.C.’s JW Marriott hotel. At least one-third of them, he said, will be “marginalized or distressed,” including those suffering terminal or mental illnesses, wounded veterans or the unemployed.
Each guest, he said, will have somehow “demonstrated hope to their communities.” A goal of the entire event is to inspire service and charity among all Americans.
“I’d like to have the whole world here,” Stafford said, “and be able to minister to those who are marginalized and underserved.”
To get as close to that as resources will allow, he’s working with predominantly African-American organizations such as the Institute for Responsible Citizenship and the National Urban League to recruit attendees from around the country who will stay at the Marriott and receive formalwear and salon services before the evening’s ball. About 300 disadvantaged young people will also receive an invitation for a youth ball to be held elsewhere in the hotel. But for each person who attends, Stafford willingly admitted hundreds more are deserving.
“A lot of people will approach him now that it’s public,” said Stacy Palmer, editor of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a newspaper that tracks the nonprofit world. “He’ll soon have to come up with a way to say, ‘Here’s what I can do, and here’s what I can’t.’ ”
Even so, Palmer said Stafford’s type of one-shot event during an especially historic inaugural season could have lasting symbolic effect.
“It has the Kennedy ‘What can you do for your country?’ sort of feeling,” she said, “and that feeling that everyone really can participate.”
