By Darla Shelden, Metropolis Sentinel Reporter —
OKLAHOMA CITY – Metropolis Care will host its fourth annual signature occasion, The Odyssey Venture, on Thursday, August 12. The night will embrace meals, drinks, artwork, music and significant dialog benefiting Metropolis Care’s work to finish cycles of social injustice and excessive poverty locally. The occasion will happen from 6 – 8 p.m.
Thestorytelling occasion will elevate crucial funds for Oklahoma Metropolis’s unsheltered neighbors.
The occasion will host 200 friends on the Third Ground of the Metropolis Place constructing, 204 N. Robinson, in downtown Oklahoma Metropolis.
“We’re keen to ask and welcome the group to stand up shut and private with a difficult story exhibiting the combat and resiliency of the human spirit via the worst of odds,” stated Chris Zach and Holly Hoyler, this yr’s occasion co-chairs.
“This evening will assist break a few of the widespread stereotypes surrounding homelessness and shine a light-weight on the redemptive worth of these typically ignored,” Zach and Hoyler continued.
“Our friends will depart with an informed understanding of the complicated points at play, a renewed ardour to serve these in want and a possible avenue to plug in and make a major distinction via Metropolis Care.”
This yr’s Odyssey Venture is impressed by a brief movie, produced by Wes Gillett, that includes Latoya and Jamael and their 5 youngsters who, as a household, skilled homelessness in Oklahoma Metropolis.
“Not many people ready to sponsor or attend an occasion like The Odyssey Venture have needed to grapple with homelessness,” stated Rachel Freeman, Metropolis Care’s Chief Working Officer.
“Most of us have a group that may choose up the telephone if we have been calling in a disaster,” Freeman added. “We’ve relations and mates who would lend us cash, drive us to work, make up a mattress, and do no matter it took to make sure we weren’t left unsheltered. However that merely isn’t the case for 1000’s annually in Oklahoma Metropolis – and that may be simple to overlook once you don’t see it up shut.
“Whereas we will’t all relate to the despair of experiencing homelessness, we will replicate on occasions we now have felt alone, misunderstood, or invisible,” Freeman stated.
“The facility of The Odyssey Venture is that it humanizes the expertise of our metropolis’s most susceptible, uncovers a few of our unconscious bias and provides a chance to meaningfully have interaction within the essential work of advocating for secure and steady housing for our neighbors.”
This yr’s occasion is introduced by ADG, a design and program administration agency in Oklahoma Metropolis.
Tickets for the Odyssey Venture begin at $125. To buy tickets or for extra info, go to CityCareOKC.org/theodysseyproject.
Metropolis Care was based in 1996 and seeks to encourage these keen to look excessive poverty and social injustice within the face and empower them to do no matter it takes to create change.
Be taught extra about Metropolis Care by visiting citycareokc.org.