Johnson County U.N. chapter hosts International Women’s Day event

The Johnson County United Nations Association will host its annual International Women’s Day event in-person this year, for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Night of 1000 Dinners is an event that dates back to 2001, but has seen various changes over the years. This year’s event, set for March 8, will feature a buffet of international dishes brought in from local restaurants and catering services, and entertainment related to International Women’s Day.

The money raised from the event will be divided among three local nonprofits — Grow: Johnson County, Field to Family and Great Plains Action Society — and the United Nations World Food Programme.

The nonprofits to be benefited were decided based on this year’s theme for the event, which is the United Nation Sustainable Development Goal 15: Life on Land, which focuses on sustaining effective uses of land around the world by combating deforestation and encouraging efficient food production.

“We decided this year, as part of our desire to bring more attention locally to the U.N.'s 17 Sustainable Development Goals, that we would pick one as our theme. We’ve had a theme the last couple of years, but we used language of our own and it wasn't specifically a sustainable development goal,” said Barbara Eckstein, president of the Johnson County U.N. chapter.

Other factors involved in choosing the local nonprofits to honor include the fact that they primarily serve Johnson County, and the fact that they have significant leadership from women, since the event is held on International Women’s Day.

Eckstein said that while concerns surrounding farming and deforestation are universal issues, they are issues that are greatly benefited when women’s voices are involved in finding solutions.

“Here, and certainly around the world, many smallholder farmers — by that I mean, farms that raise food for people on a local, specific scale — are organizations that are run by women. So, that is a part of our interest in it as part of International Women's Day,” Eckstein said. “Also because in many places in the world women are responsible for cooking and household management, and that involves, in many cases, finding fuel for cooking. So, it's important that women are very involved in reforestation because it helps organizations to think through alternative fuels to wood, and it gives them alternatives.”

Entertainment at the Night of 1000 Dinners will include performances by a children’s folklorico dance troupe and opera singer Andrew Rene. Each of the local nonprofits being honored also will show a video explaining the work that they do.

Eckstein said the videos were started during the past two years, when the event was held over Zoom and instead of a buffet, participants were entered into a drawing for gift certificates to local restaurants.

“Before COVID, groups were given an award in-person and people who were leaders in the group would stand up and talk about the work that they did, but no video. And we realized these videos were really special. So, we kept the video portion of it,” Eckstein said.

The event earned more money during the pandemic than it had in prior years, according to Eckstein. She said that while many people were feeling extra generous during COVID, it’s important to show people that the need to support local and international nonprofits has not disappeared.

“It’s not by any means too late to buy a ticket, make a donation. We want to do as well in person as we did with the pandemic events and get some money into the hands of these people who know what to do with it,” Eckstein said.

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