For its second annual sold-out gala, Elevate: Lifting Stories of Hope, The City Mission will honor Dr. Fred and Jackie Rothstein, Cuyahoga Land Bank Charities, MetroHealth and The Wesley Family Foundation on April 26 at the downtown Marriott in Cleveland in Key Tower. This year’s theme is “a place to call home.”
“We do a lot of work getting businesses, organizations or foundations to sponsor different aspects from as high as $25,000 to a $2,000 sponsorship,” The City Mission CEO Linda Uveges told the Cleveland Jewish News. “... We really want to make it an experience for those who are attending to learn about what we’re doing and how they can tangibly help and impact those that we serve.”
The City Mission is a 501(c)(3), and is funded entirely through private donations. It works to “provide help and hope to Cleveland’s hurting and homeless,” according to its website, as well as meeting needs of food, shelter and clothing.
Uveges
At the gala, Uveges said, there will be four awards for Help, Heart, Home and Sara Moll, created last year for Moll’s “dream and vision” for Laura’s Home Women’s Crisis Center, which offers specialized wraparound services designed to empower families and individuals to live healthy lives.
“The first (award) for help is The Wesley Family Foundation,” Uveges said. “They have been giving to the mission for almost 20 years ... For them, it’s a personal thing because they have a family member that has experienced some of the same issues that our residents have, so it has always been on their heart to give back and to help an organization that would have been able to help their family member.”
MetroHealth will receive the Heart award, Uveges said, due to the mobile units it brings to The City Mission’s campus for both men and women to provide basic health care check-ups and screenings for residents.
“We really believe in a holistic approach to caring for individuals,” Uveges said. “Obviously, we’re going to have classes and have that faith component, but we also need to care for the physical needs of our residents who so often neglect that because they’re in crisis.”
The third award, Home, will go to the Cuyahoga Land Bank Charities, Uveges said, who have worked with The City Mission for the last 10 years. The organization, she said, has a “huge portfolio” of homes that were in foreclosure.
“They’d give us a home for a dollar,” Uveges said. “Then, we raise the money to rehab the home, to do all the work (and) get it ready for a family. We have done 12 homes and the land bank really has been a part of each one in one way or another.”
The Rothsteins, who are receiving the Sarah Moll Award, gave $1.5 million to The City Mission for its transitional housing project, Uveges said. The village of homes, which started construction the week of April 1, will be named Rothstein Village Transitional Housing for Families.
“We’re building 16 three-bedroom, two-bathroom units,” Uveges said. “Because of the Rothsteins, they are making a huge impact and leaving a legacy for the future hundreds of families to go through that transitional housing program.”
The Cleveland Jewish News is a media partner of the event.
