Guests joined in support of The Doe Fund’s flagship Ready, Willing & Able program, which provides a working way home for formerly homeless and incarcerated men in New York City.
NEW YORK, NY—The Doe Fund held its annual Gala benefit Thursday, October 24th at Cipriani 42nd Street. The event drew over 500 guests and raised more than $1.9 million for the flagship Ready, Willing & Able program, which provides a working way home for men with long histories of homelessness and incarceration.
The event celebrated the “Men In Blue,” the participants in the Ready, Willing & Able program, and featured remarks from House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler and a musical performance by the Cardinal Spellman High School Gospel Choir. The event garnered over $1.9 million dollars to further The Doe Fund’s mission to combat social injustice and break the cycles of homelessness, addiction and criminal recidivism. This year’s support was led by generous donations from The Doresa Jones Trust in honor of Ben Henry Jones and a gift from Natalie Levinson to purchase more vans for our “Men In Blue.”
The highlights of the evening were the personal stories from past participants of the Ready, Willing & Able program: Thomas Hooker and Antwoin “Chef Fresh” Gutierrez. These men bravely each shared their powerful journeys from homelessness and incarceration to self-sufficiency as productive members of society, and the role The Doe Fund played in supporting these efforts.
Generous donations from the following will ensure The Doe Fund is able to provide a hand up through the power of opportunity for years to come to thousands of formerly incarcerated and homeless men in New York City: The Fishman Family Foundation, Donna & Marvin Schwartz Foundation, Tom and Paula McInerney, The Schaps Family Foundation, BET, Viacom, MTV, Wells Fargo, Bolivar Development, Ethan and Ryan Hawke, Mega Contracting, David and Abigail Shapiro, Santander, Blavatnik Family Foundation, The Mary Alice Fortin Foundation, The Rona Jaffe Foundation, Lamb Insurance Services, The Margaret and Daniel Loeb Foundation, Singing for Change, Crescent Street Construction, Dentsu Aegis Network, East Sixties Neighborhood Association, EQ Office, Galaxy G.C. Group, Goldstein Hall, A. Larovere Consulting, Thomas C. Lynch, Nicholas Martini Foundation Robert Morse, Raymond James and Associates, The Rodgers Family Foundation – Nina Beaty, Marilyn and James Simons Charitable Fund and The Stubbs Family Charitable Fund.
The Doe Fund’s founder and president reflected on the need for transitional and supportive programs for the formerly incarcerated to prevent recidivism and promote self-sufficiency and personal progress. “We celebrate the real criminal justice reform taking place across our nation and in our own state of New York – combating the persistent over-incarceration, particularly of minorities, has been at the core of The Doe Fund’s mission since we began almost three decades ago,” said George McDonald, President of The Doe Fund. “At this time in our national journey towards greater social justice, we believe the Ready, Willing & Able program is needed now more than ever to support those formerly incarcerated on their journey home. We could not be more thankful to our generous donors who make all of our efforts possible.”
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