The Innocent Lives Ending Child Exploitation Gala Recap

I am not even sure how to encapsulate the evening that just occurred as our first official Innocent Lives Foundation Ending Child Exploitation Gala ended an amazing success.? I am going to try to at least give the highlights so you can try and experience the evening through proxy.

The evening kicked off with Roger Lundblade as our announcer, auctioneer and voice of god introducing our amazing host, LeVar Burton .?

LeVar is a legend. Not only is a true professional, but he is all heart, so generous with his time, effort, money and emotion. Meeting him was a bucket list item for me, but getting to hang out was even more amazing that I could have imagined.

We opened with a beautiful woman who dedicated a song to us, Tara Parham. She set the mood, lifted our spirits and has the voice of an angel.

After a few quick games to start the night we had open ceremonies. Both LeVar and I had some opening words that lead right into introducing our amazing honorees.

Up first is the one and only Lisa Guerrero , her work with Inside Edition helped expose the way major sporting events in this country are used as times for human trafficking and sale of children for sex. Her work has exposed so many dark corners, she received the first ever ILF Light of Hope Award.

Next up was Randy Burton, J.D., Hon. Litt.D. , the running joke was that he and LeVar are cousins. But this man has been advocating and literally fighting to save children since the late 1980’s. And he has saved so many children its hard to count. He received our Light of Hope award too.

Finally, Chief Criminal Investigator Kevin Atkins . He is literally on the ground arresting predators and saving kids in South Carolina. He is a true hero and he and his team do the hardest jobs out there. He was awarded our final Light of Hope Award.

The honoree awards ran right into our Live Auction. There were so many amazing things that had been gifted to us and so many great trips and items. A couple of wonderful things occurred during this auction.

First, LeVar last minute, threw a LUNCH WITH LEVAR on table as an auction item. Second, the band we had, The Action Figures, the drummer Greg Grunberg threw a HANG OUT WITH THE BAND at their studio for auction and sold TWO of them. Third, LeVar bought a beautiful vacation package so he could gift it to the Special Agent and his wife. Finally, an amazing woman, Rosey D'Angelo , was so moved by our mission she painted a beautiful painting for us to auction off. Rosey then took the stage to talk about what the painting meant to her and why this mission was so important to her.

Moving from the auction we went to our last fundraiser, “Fund a Case” were we ask the audience to literally help us fund cases so we can put more bad guys away. This part literally brought tears to my eyes.? Soon as I got done with my emotional speech, LeVar Burton threw his paddle up and funded FIVE CASES to the tune of $25,000. This moved Lisa Guerrero to throw her paddle up and she also funded FIVE CASES to the tune of $25,000. I didn’t know how to handle the amazing generosity in the room.

Over that night we raised $124,848.50 to help end child exploitation. WOW. The generosity of strangers is just amazing.

The night didn’t end there, The Action Figures took the stage and ROCKED the house for an hour kicking off amazing tunes and leaving us feeling better for having been there.

The band members that came: Jack Coleman, Brad Savage, Scott Grimes, Adrian Pasdar, Nick Marzock, Drew Powell and Greg Grunberg - They Knocked it out of the park!

To say I feel emotional, humbled, in awe would be an understatement of the greatest proportions. It has now been a week and I can’t still fully process all the emotion from that event, all the amazing people I was able to meet, all the love and good energy in the room.

From every one of us on the board of The Innocent Lives Foundation (Douglas Ash, Erin Gray, Stephanie Paul, Dr. Kathie Mathis, Tim Maloney and myself) and the employees ( Shane McCombs , John McCombs , Erin Maloney, LCSW , Ernesto Maldonado and Cardell Oliver) - THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING and Making this an amazing night.

Thank you to all of you who supported this event and who continually support our fight to end child exploitation. Till next year!

Areesa H Kevin Couch Elisa D'Angelo Mary D'Angelo Evan Blair Henkels, Paul Erich Kron Social-Engineer, LLC

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