Johnson County United Nations Association, or JCUNA, and the Office of Equity and Human Rights will co-host the “Night of 1,000 Dinners” on March 6 to celebrate International Women’s Day.
The event, which seeks to recognize women-led organizations in Johnson County, is an annual program happening since 2001 and includes a dinner, entertainment, and the recognition of organizations advancing UN Sustainable Development Goals.
This year, JCUNA is focusing on Sustainable Development Goal three: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for everyone of all ages. When deciding which Sustainable Development Goal to focus on, JCUNA looks at current events and reflects on the previous Sustainable Development Goals that were highlighted by “Night of 1,000 Dinners” events in past years to pick the most pressing goal to focus on.
“We decided that we wanted particularly to focus on the health and well-being of immigrant and refugee peoples in our communities,” Barbara Eckstein, the president of JCUNA said. “That led us to the couple organizations that we’re very pleased to fundraise for and honor this year: the Free Medical and Dental Clinic and Prairielands Freedom Fund.”
The decision to focus on the health and well-being of immigrants and refugees comes at a time when immigrants in the U.S. face the threat of deportation due to President Trump’s mass deportation plans.
As local and state governments respond to these plans, many immigration nonprofits have been uncertain about how Trump’s immigration plans will unfold and how this will affect them financially.
“We hope to raise as much money as possible for these organizations that do really critical work,” Eckstein said. “And now, as various government funding is up in the air, it’s even more important that we step up and try to help these organizations help people, both globally and at home.”
Prairielands Freedom Funds is one of the organizations that will receive proceeds from the event. The organization works to minimize the harm inflicted by the cost of imprisonment by paying immigration bonds and pre-trial bail for those who face detention and has helped pay bail for over 75 immigrants who live in Iowa.
“We expect to use any funds raised to pay bonds for detained immigrants,” Julia Zalenski, the co-founder of Prairielands Freedom Funds, wrote in an email to The Daily Iowan. “As an all-volunteer organization, we have extremely low overhead and are able to direct almost all of the funds we raised directly to bond payments.”
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Alongside Prairielands Freedom Funds is the Free Medical and Dental Clinic, which provides medical and dental services to clients who are primarily refugees and immigrants. The proceeds from “Night of 1,000 Dinners” will also go toward Healthy Start for Refugee Children, an initiative of the United Nations campaign Shot@Life, which provides immunization to children in refugee camps.
Eckstein said the “Night of 1,000 Dinners” event has its origins as a global event that aimed to raise money for the removal of landmines in territories where wars had taken place. While the event hosted by JCUNA has since evolved, “Night of 1,000 Dinners” still seeks to raise money for critical issues and causes and to honor those in our community.
This year, alongside a Togolese dinner and hearing from this year’s organizations, the program will be introduced in languages other than English in order to honor the members of Johnson County who speak different languages.
This part of the event was inspired by a round table about the state of human rights in Johnson County, which JCUNA conducted in December 2024 for Human Rights Day. At this round table, local nonprofits discussed the state of human rights in Johnson County, and the experience of non-English speakers was brought to the attention of JCUNA.
“We learned that still, in our community, many [people who don’t speak English or who speak English with what’s called an accent], are still met with stereotypes about how educated they are, what they know, and about who they are,” Eckstein said. “So, we are excited to provide this program that displays the beauty of these languages and pushes against that stereotype.”
For Prairielands Freedom Fund, the group looks forward to sharing its work with the community.
“[Our] work is often fairly technical and can be difficult to explain, so we are excited for the opportunity to share why our work matters with folks who may not already be familiar with it,” Zalenski wrote.
“Night of 1,000 Dinners” will also include recognition of the Coralville Public Library for its effort in supporting immigrants and refugees through its programs and resources.
These include the programs and resources available to everyone, such as the community fridge, community clinic, and access to computers and Wi-Fi. They also include free English language classes and the community resource navigator, who helps connect people to resources such as the Free Medical and Dental Clinic and Johnson County Social Services.
“We’re just really touched and honored to be recognized by [JCUNA],” Alison Ames Galstad, the library director at Coralville Public Library, said. “I have a lot of respect for them, and we were surprised that what we were doing here was even on their radar. That was really pleasant news and really uplifting to my staff, so we’re looking forward to the dinner.”