EVENING OF HOPE 2023
On Thursday, 28 September we held our second annual gala - An Evening of Hope 2023.
The event was held at the Event Center at Trilogy Verde River, set on the edge of Tonto National Forest with stunning views of Four Peaks and the surrounding mountains.
We welcomed about 60 guests to an evening filled with information, a wonderful dinner and an exciting Silent Auction. Thanks to the generosity of the people who donated items for the auction and the incredible response from the attendees, we exceeded our fundraising target!
Scroll down to see details of the event, photos and share your comments!
Speakers and Presenters
Janet Bentley
Janet opened the event by welcoming everyone and went on to describe ‘what’s new’ at Courageous Survivors. She also introduced and thanked the members of the Board
Jim Corrington
Jim gave an energetic and informative talk about his work as the Executive Director of Meadows Outpatient Services and his own journey of recovery from addiction
Karen Keilt
Karen shared a fascinating but horrifying account of her personal experiences of human rights violations in Brazil as well as how she overcame the obstacles of the legacy of her abuse
Tanya Howell
Tanya was the MC for the evening and did a wonderful job of sharing her own experience, keeping everyone engaged and introducing the speakers and different segments of the event
Josh Nisbet
Josh was the Auctioneer for the evening and his energy and passion for the event was key to the success of the Silent Auction and the
Photo Gallery
Video Messages
Support for Courageous Survivors has spread well beyond Arizona where we are based and unfortunately some people were unable to attend the Evening of Hope in person. Several of our supporters were kind enough to record short video messages that we played throughout the evening. We are truly grateful to these people for helping make the evening so memorable and include their messages here.
Brad, Cody and Alli Simpson
Dominic Lawson
Martha Green
Ijah McCulley
Claudia Black
Cathy Studer
Aleah Johnson
Diana Dunham
With thanks to our supporters who made the event possible
Auction and Donations
This year we managed our auction using Galabid - allowing everyone to view items and bid on them using their mobile phones!
Event attendees were invited to join in the bidding on a great variety of items that were up for auction. Thanks to some great encouragement from the auctioneer, Josh, some of the items ended up driving bidding battles!
Thanks to the generosity of all of our auction donors, we had over 20 fabulous items on offer and raised just under $2500 - far exceeding our target.
As well as fabulous auction items, we also invited participants to make an instant donation to Courageous Survivors and their generosity blew us away when we closed the auction and saw that they had donated a further $2500!
All proceeds from the event will be used to provide valuable resources to survivors, including sponsorships to the Ruth Place treatment program.
