Stepping up for the youth of Covenant House Pennsylvania

On May 13, 2017, local photographer Stevie Chris hosted the Step Up Gala at the Bok in South Philadelphia. Stevie decided to host this small gala to raise money and awareness around the vital issue of youth homelessness and to support the work of Covenant House Pennsylvania. Even though it was his first foray into the world of fundraising, with the support of our team and our new Do-It-Yourself fundraising platform the event raised almost $2,500 in its first year!   

When asked what prompted him to hold this fundraiser, Stevie responded, “I would love to sound like some noble person, but the simple matter of fact is, I felt bad that I can’t help people out on my day to day as much as I would like. I mean a dollar here, a dollar there if I happened to have anything on me is well and fine, but what does that really do? I just wanted to try and do something a little bit bigger than myself with the resources I have and a little elbow grease.”

He continued, “The one thing of value I knew I had and could give, was my time. That said, I started making calls, setting up meetings and doing whatever I could to try to get a foundation started for an event like this. From there, I kept hacking away with ideas, emails etc. hoping to gain momentum with each call or email sent. This day and age you’re bombarded with social media, people saying this or that with no action. I didn’t want to be one of those people. I wanted to actually do something positive, simple as that.”
 
According to Stevie, "it was definitely a big learning experience. Hopefully we can do more and make it ten times bigger, better and raise that much more money for the youth of our city. With that in mind, onto next year! ” We look forward to working with Stevie as he looks to grow his DIY event to an annual event supporting our youth.