Bridging Communities Eid Celebration

Please note: any sponsorships purchased after 11:00am on Friday, April 21 will not make it to the program booklet, but will get acknowledged on VL's website! Thank you for understanding.

Vigilant Love invites you to celebrate Eid with us at our Bridging Communities Eid Celebration and fundraiser on Sunday, April 23, from 2:00pm to 5:00pm PST at the Terasaki Budokan in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles! Adapted from VL’s Bridging Communities Iftar, this year’s family-friendly, in-person Eid celebration is an inter-spiritual community experience where we invite people of all ages to gather and collectively emerge from the contemplative, inward-turning spirit of Ramadan into a celebration of the sweetness of life, of VL family and community, and gratitude for our blessings.

Our theme for the 2023 Eid Celebration is “Sweets and Solidarity,” inspired by the expansive variety of desserts and treats enjoyed all over the Islamic world during Eid, as well as Vigilant Love’s ongoing solidarity and healing justice work. We acknowledge the challenges, isolation, and injustices our communities have endured during these last three years. With our “Sweets and Solidarity” event, we celebrate the gift of safely coming together in person, in community, after so long. We affirm our right to gather not only in grief and rage, but in joy – joy in our resilience and our re-commitment to each other in solidarity. We are excited to eat, be social, share stories, pray, and create and witness art together.

Since Vigilant Love’s founding, we have been committed to resisting isolation and building solidarity through arts and healing justice. No matter the obstacles we face, we affirm how radically special our Bridging Communities events have become and hope you join us in person this year for our 8th Bridging Communities gathering!

Event Information

2:00 pm – doors open & the celebration begins!

Join us to re-connect with community, make new friends, participate in hands-on activity booths, snag your raffle tickets, find resonance and inspiration through the art walk, and enjoy some sweets and drinks. We will have prayer space available for Dhuhr – more details below!

3:00-4:30 – Eid dua & program.

Settle in for a presentation of performances from our 2023 Solidarity Arts Fellows, our 3rd annual Khayal-Kokoro community awards ceremony, raffle drawings, story sharing and reflections from guest speakers, and updates from VL’s year of work centering a politics of love and sweetness in our organizing efforts.

4:50 – Asr congregational prayer.

We will have two congregational prayers for those who wish to pray in jamaat – one for Dhuhr before the program and one after for Asr. At this time, we ask non-Muslims to kindly refrain from walking in front of those praying and to be mindful of not stepping on the sheets in the prayer rug to maintain the cleanliness of the area for those who wish to pray.

The designated prayer space will be open and available at all times. We encourage everyone to bring their own individual prayer rugs to reduce the spread of germs on shared mats.

* We highly encourage folks to arrive right around 2:00 pm for time to socialize and explore before we transition into our 3:00 pm program!

Covid-19 Safety, Vaccination, & Mask Policy

We are in an ongoing pandemic and have designed this event to center the safety and wellbeing of our community. While most of the event will take place outdoors, we ask that everyone stays masked indoors at all times. We invite you to enjoy treats and beverages in the Terasaki Budokan’s outdoor space and be mindful to put your mask back on, even outside, when not actively eating or drinking.

We will be requiring proof of vaccination and temperature checks at the door. If you cannot provide proof of vaccination, we will require proof of a recent, negative PCR test and/or a rapid test at the door. We will have a limited quantity of masks and rapid test kits available at the door.

Please visit https://dhs.lacounty.gov/covid-19/testing/ to book a PCR test.

Ticketing, Registration, & Sponsorship Information

General admission for the event is $50 and includes one seat, one raffle ticket, and sweets, snacks, and beverages at the event. Youth admission is $30. Sponsorships begin at $100 and come with exciting perks, including a reserved table with 10 seats and extra raffle tickets (for all sponsorship tiers), acknowledgement during our live program (for the Vigilant Visionaries and higher tiers), custom Vigilant Love t-shirts (for Revolutionary Rockstars and higher tiers), and a presentation opportunity during the event (for our Legendary Liberator tier).

If you would like to request a sliding scale ticket, please email vlbridgingcommunities@gmail.com.

More information about sponsorship levels and benefits can be found here.

Prayer Space

One prayer space will be available for all genders on the upper level at the Terasaki Budokan (accessible by stairs and elevator). Some prayer rugs will be available, and both shi’a and sunni prayer times will be provided. A gender neutral bathroom is around the corner from the prayer space on the upper level and gendered bathrooms are on the lower level.

Venue Accessibility & Parking

Bathroom: There is a single stall gender neutral bathroom on the terrace level and two additional gendered bathrooms on the ground level.

Seating: There will be a seating area reserved for those who are hard of hearing or those who cannot stand throughout the program.

Livestream: The live stream on Zoom will have closed captions.

Translation services: We will work to provide translation services to anyone who needs them. When booking your ticket, please reach out to let us know what language is needed.

Mobility: The entire venue is wheelchair accessible, and there is a two-car loading zone in front of the venue entrance for drop offs and pickups.

Food & drink: We are working to ensure that there are gluten free, vegan, allergen free, and low sugar food and beverage options. All food provided will be halal. There will be no alcoholic beverages.

Parking: The Terasaki Budokan has paid parking available to 55 vehicles from 7am to 10pm for a flat rate of $10. Both street parking (including yellow zones on Sundays) and garage parking is available in Little Tokyo, and there are several parking options within a few blocks of the Budokan. We recommend the Aiso Street Garage as an affordable option at $5 for 3 hours. This map can help you find parking options in the area.

* Do you have specific accommodation requirements not listed here? Please let us know when you register and we’ll do our best to accommodate you!

Program Livestream information

The Eid dua and program portion of our 2023 Bridging Communities Eid Celebration will be livestreamed. More details on how to access the live stream will be provided soon.