Progressive Dinner Party participants gather in a lush backyard where a PDP fundraiser party was held in
November 2007. This particular Progressive Dinner Party raised funds for Excelsus Music Collaborators. 
 
UPDATE Wednesday, June 1, 9:45pm | Due to limited space, members of Progressive Dinner Party Long Beach are requesting that those who plan on attending this Sunday’s dinner party at Curley’s Cafe to RSVP by clicking here and registering.

The fundraiser event will benefit a campaign recently launched by the Long Beach Education Foundation to save the local school district’s middle school sports program, which the district is no longer funding.
 
The $35 donation is not paid at the time of registration, but, rather, at the event. Checks should be made out to: Long Beach Education Foundation – Save Middle School Sports.

PDP Long Beach’s Adreana Langston has also informed us that the founding members of PDP have since handed over control of the progressive-minded fundraiser dinner party organization to other members. Those now heading up the group are Langston, Kristine Kelly, Spencer Langdon, Josi Jenneskens and Nancy Valencia.

“Mad props certainly are due to the original Progressive Dinner Party members who started the organization and carried it for five years,” Langston wrote in a Wednesday evening e-mail to the Long Beach Post. “But last year those original members passed the reins to five other members who are now Progressive Dinner Party Long Beach.”

6:34am | A local group of friends who every other month host a dinner party open to the public and charge $35 per person to raise money for various charities and causes in the greater Long Beach area will host their next meal this Sunday, when they will be raising funds to help save middle school sports in Long Beach.

The Long Beach Unified School District Board  of Trustees voted in March to eliminate funding for the district’s middle school sports program as part of its ongoing efforts to address the district’s looming budget shortfall in the face of repeated, emaciating slashes to state education funding.

Since 2008, LBUSD has cut  more than $200 million from its annual operating budget, and more than 700 district staffers are being laid off this coming school year.

Effectively axed beginning in the 2011-12 school year are eight sports: volleyball, flag football, boys and girls basketball,
boys and girls track and field, boys and girls soccer and cross country.

The sports funding covered all costs of administering the middle school sports program, including district-certified coaches,
certified sports officials, buses and awards.

In April, the Long Beach Education Foundation board voted to launch a Save LBUSD Middle School Sports! campaign, which has a goal of raising $190,000, half of the total $380,000 needed to retain all sports programs for middle-schoolers
next year.

LBUSD Superintendent Chris Steinhauser has said that the district would reallocate certain restricted funds to cover the remaining half.

The group hosting the fundraiser dinner, Progressive Dinner Party, has zeroed in on the middle school sports campaign as its next benefactee.

PDP was established by a group of friends shortly following the 2004 presidential election, and they’ve been hosting periodic fundraiser dinner parties at their homes  and the homes of PDP regulars ever since.

Dubbed the “Five Progressives,” Progressive Dinner Party’s Cari Marshall and husband Eric de Valpine, Donna Hilbert, Tere Sievers and Lenore Brown raised more than $112,000 in cash and in-kind donations for Long Beach charities since PDP’s inception.

The concept, which is explained on the group’s website, is simple:

We share dinner and wine with friends on the third Sunday of every other month at the home of a “party member,” where we will enjoy each other’s company and contribute the price of an average dinner out to a local cause that benefits children and families. Occasionally we also host informal gatherings to benefit international causes that are near and dear to our hearts.

The homes, food, wine and even plates and napkins are donated by businesses and individuals who care about making a difference in the community.

This weekend’s dinner party to save middle school sports is set for Sunday, June 5, from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Curley’s Cafe, 1999 E. Willow St. in Signal Hill. The suggested donation is $35, with all proceeds going to the Long Beach Education Foundation.