On February 16, 2017, after six-months of planning and fundraising, we were able to see the fruits of our hard work at the Charity League of Corpus Christi’s annual fundraising Style Show and Luncheon. Each year the Charity League gathers together to look closely at deserving nonprofits in the Corpus Christi area and this year they chose us, Youth Odyssey, to be the recipient of the proceeds from all of their hard work. When I say hard work, I mean hard work. This group of 40 women literally do it all. They make the food for their cocktail party the evening before the fundraising luncheon. They make all of the decorations, nametags, get out into the community and collect amazing door prizes and raffle prizes, organize an event for over 800 people and have it go off without a hitch (or if there was one, no one knew about it). It was flawless and impressive to say the least.
Each year there is a different theme and this year was a Spanish theme using “Bienvendos a San Miguel (Welcome to San Miguel)” as their inspiration. There was a Mariachi band playing beautifully as the guests arrived, a fabulous backdrop picture of the San Miguel Mission, flowers and delicious corn in a cup (if you haven’t had it, you’re missing out, it’s heaven). The atmosphere was energizing in a flurry of excitement, fun, colorful surroundings, and anticipation.
Like every year, the luncheon was combined with a fashion show (clothes provided by Julian Gold) and a presentation from the chosen nonprofit. Becky Meyer, Youth Odyssey’s Executive Director, introduced what Youth Odyssey is and how we are making a positive impact on the at-risk community in the Coastal Bend. We were able to show our new promotional video which illustrates how we are using life skills programming to help our youth become active and beneficial members of our society.
After the presentations and the video it was time to reveal how much money had been raised by the Charity League of Corpus Christi for Youth Odyssey, in order to support our ropes course renovations. The total raised was over $259,000!!! We were floored and overjoyed with the amount of support and money they had been able to raise for us. They mentioned that that number was likely to increase before the check presentation in May as more people hear about it and want to support our cause.
Thanks to the hard work and dedication of the Charity League of Corpus Christi we will be able to create an amazing and more functional ropes course for our youth participants and community groups. With this ropes course expansion we will be able to accommodate larger groups and even more than one group at a time! Our ropes course is the turning point in our programs, it’s where we see the team really come together. You see the youth’s growth happen right in front of your eyes in the course of just one day. It’s amazing! With this new expansion we will also be able to host more community groups like youth groups, corporate groups, leadership conferences, the police academy and TAMU Corpus Christi to name a few. When community groups come out to our course they are paying customers as opposed to our youth programs where everything they do is free of cost for them and their families. This means that the more community groups we host at our ropes course the more money we receive that we put directly back into our programs, allowing us to impact even more youth and grow as an organization.
We are beyond blessed to have been selected by the Charity League this year and to have this new and exciting project finally starting to come to life. The impact that this renovation will have on Youth Odyssey as an organization is beyond measure and the impact that this renovation will allow us to have on the community and the at-risk youth we work with will be seen for years to come.
Thank you Charity League for believing in our mission and for creating an amazing platform to help us make a greater impact!
