Resilience is thrilled to announce that Evening of Impact will take place on May 30, 2024! We invite you to our largest and most celebrated event of the year! We will gather at Galleria Marchetti for a special evening of celebrations, guest speakers, dinner, awards, and so much more. We are celebrating our 50th anniversary throughout this year and Evening of Impact will be an exciting night to honor 50 years of supporting survivors with the people who make it possible.

Community partners, allies, donors, supporters, staff, volunteers, and more will come together to celebrate, socialize, and raise funds for Resilience. We will be joined by a variety of moving guest speakers to enjoy hors d’oeuvres, cocktails, dinner, a program, a silent auction, a raffle, a presentation of the Dr. Natalie A. Stephens Visionary Award, and more. All proceeds from Evening of Impact support Resilience’s vision of preventing sexual violence and providing client-centered and trauma-informed services completely free to survivors and their loved ones who come to Resilience to heal. You won’t want to miss this energetic and powerful event!

Click here to register.

EVENT DETAILS

Date: Thursday, May 30, 2024, 6:00 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.
Galleria Marchetti, 825 W. Erie St.
Cocktail/business attire

Purchase tickets here.

Accessibility:  To request an accommodation, or for inquiries about accessibility, please contact us.

Safety:  Per CDC and the City of Chicago guidelines, masks and vaccinations are encouraged but not required.

2024 VISIONARY AWARD RECIPIENT, MARION BROOKS

The Dr. Natalie A. Stephens Visionary Award recognizes the work of far-sighted leaders who have made a powerful and lasting impact on the movement to end sexual violence. The award is named in honor of our late founder, Dr. Natalie A. Stephens, who, together with ten medical and nursing students, founded Rape Victim Advocates in 1974. Resilience is honored to celebrate award-winning anchor and reporter at NBC 5, Marion Brooks, at Evening of Impact.

Marion Brooks is an award-winning anchor and reporter at NBC 5. She anchors the NBC 5 News at 11 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. each weekday and is a member of the NBC 5 Investigates team.  She has also co-hosted the NBC 5 production of the Bank of America Chicago Marathon since 2017.

Brooks’ passion is for reporting and storytelling. In her investigative work she has been drawn to social and criminal justice issues. That focus inspired her to update and add context to the story of Emmett Till in the documentary, The Lost Story of Emmett Till: The Universal Child. 

In the wake of the racial unrest after the murder of George Floyd, Brooks spearheaded NBC 5’s Race In Chicago initiatives.  The multi-platform project included Say the Word, Say the Name, a digital series of first-person accounts of experiences with racism, as well as a reading of names of people who died in racially motivated killings.   The initiative also included a series of television stories. The Race in Chicago television special(s) earned Brooks and her co-producers national recognition from the National Alliance for Women in Media (Gracie).

Her series of reports on Sex Trafficking in Chicago has earned her several awards including a national Gracie and a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award from the Radio Television and Digital News Association (RTDNA).

Her investigative work on sexual violence issues led to NBCChicago.com’s Survivor’s Project.  That project featured brave survivors of sexual violence sharing what happened to them, but also how they persevered and grew strong enough to own the narrative of their experience.  The project was recognized by the RTDNA with a Regional Edward R. Murrow Award and the Illinois Broadcasters Association’s Silver Dome Award.

Brooks joined NBC5 in 1998 as a weekend anchor from Atlanta, Ga., where she also served as an anchor/reporter at WSB-TV.

Her career has spanned over several regions and market sizes in the country. Beginning at the Sarasota Herald Tribune in Sarasota, Fla., Brooks learned the advertising side of journalism in a management training program for the New York Times Newspaper Group.

Her first job in broadcasting was in radio at WGST, a news talk station in Atlanta, in the entry level type of job that exposed her to the long hours, hard work, and adrenaline rushes of newsgathering. She credits this experience with solidifying her desire to work as a journalist.

Her first television job took her to one of the poorest regions in the country, the Mississippi Delta. From there her career wound through markets around the country with stops in Jacksonville, Fla., St. Louis, Mo., Atlanta, Ga., and ultimately Chicago.

She’s covered everything from major natural disasters to politics, crime and courts to health, consumer issues to two Olympic Games, and much in between.

Brooks has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from Spelman College and is a member of the National Association of Black Journalists.

She is a native of Vancouver, British Columbia, and was raised in Portland, Oregon.   Brooks has two beautiful daughters, Brooks Hawkins and Sydney Hawkins.

Brooks has been honored with Awards from the following organizations:

• National Association of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS), Midwest Chapter Emmy Award
• National Emmy Award
• Alliance for Women in Media (Gracie)
• Radio Television Digital News Association (Edward R. Murrow Award, Region 7)
• Associated Press
• Illinois Broadcasters Association
• National Vernon Jarrett Award, 2005 – Institute of Advanced Journalism Studies, North Carolina A&T State University
• National Mental Health Association
• Illinois Mental Health Association
• Chicago Association of Black Journalists

SILENT AUCTION

We will have a collection of amazing items to bid on in our Silent Auction. Make sure to check the link regularly, as new items will be added!

Please note that you do not need to purchase an Evening of Impact ticket to participate in the silent auction, but you will need to log in or create an account with GiveSmart.

SPONSORSHIP

Sponsorship information can be found here.

DONATE

You can donate to the Evening of Impact by clicking here.

Thank you for choosing to support Evening of Impact. We are so grateful for your support of sexual violence response and prevention services in Chicago, and we can’t thank you enough for being a part of this important event.

RAFFLE

Every Evening of Impact ticket purchase includes the purchase of one raffle ticket.  Individual raffle tickets are $25 each.  

ABOUT EVENING OF IMPACT

Evening of Impact is Resilience’s largest annual gathering inviting donors, partners, friends, and allies to celebrate our impact in the lives of survivors and our continued work to create a world free of sexual assault, abuse, and harassment. Proceeds from the evening go toward supporting Resilience’s programs and services, helping to ensure that survivors and their communities continue to have access to vital resources and a place to heal.

For more information: please contact Donna Jacobson, Executive Director.