Forty Years of Community, Culture, and Celebration.

For more than three decades, the most anticipated night on Washington, DC’s fall calendar was the KSEF Celebrity Auction and Soul Food Feast. Held annually on the campus of Howard University, the event brought together 700 supporters every year — community members, business leaders, alumni, and friends who came to eat, bid, and invest in DC’s students.

The Live Auction. The Silent Auction. The Soul Food Feast. The room alive with music, laughter, and purpose. For 34 consecutive years, the event sold out. Not once did it fail to fill that room. That record is a testament not to KSEF alone, but to a community that chose, year after year, to believe in the next generation.

Through the generosity of the many individuals and businesses that contributed gifts and services for the auctions, KSEF raised the funds that built a $6.5 million endowment — one of the most remarkable community-funded educational endowments in Washington, DC’s history. Since 2021, KSEF has shifted to an Annual Solicitation model, welcoming direct monetary donations, transfers of appreciated stock, and estate bequests into the endowment each year. The tradition of community generosity continues — in a new form, with the same heart.