More than 500 tickets have been sold for the 7th Annual Charis House Gala live and silent auction, which takes place on Friday at Parkview’s Mirro Conference and Event Center. That’s nearly 100 more attendees than the fund raiser had just two years ago.
“The community is really buying into what we’re doing at The Rescue Mission through Charis House, our women and children’s ministry,” said CEO Donovan Coley. “The Charis House Gala is not only a way for us to raise funds for the ministry so that our residents will find real change, but it is also a celebration of the many women and children who have already gone through the program and changed their lives.”
Donations from the event will go directly to Charis House to help women and children in a homeless crisis. Charis House provides not only basic needs of shelter and food, but also life-changing and therapeutic programming that gives hurting women a chance to address trauma, substance abuse, mental illness, and spiritual deficits. By providing programming for both women and children, Charis House seeks to break the intergenerational cycles of poverty and homelessness.
Within the past year, Charis House served a total of 150 women and 110 children and youth.
“It’s heartbreaking that we sometimes don’t have the resources to help the women and children in our community who need it,” Coley said. “That’s why the Charis House Gala is so important. We want to raise funds to serve 165 women and 120 children and youth in the year ahead.”
Besides a general donation, the Charis House Gala features a live and silent auction filled with items and experiences donated by local businesses. New to this year’s auction is the use of mobile bidding, where gala guests can bid on silent auction items through their cell phones.
This event begins at 5:30 p.m. at Mirro Conference & Event Center (10622 Parkview Plaza Dr., Fort Wayne, IN 46845) and is made possible in part through the support of area sponsors, including Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Company and Phillips Financial. The media is invited to attend (photo op).
