Annual fundraising Gala at The Club on September 9, 2021
Published: August 13, 2021
Sozo Children International, a Birmingham, Alabama-based nonprofit ministry dedicated to serving at-risk children in Uganda, will host its annual fundraising Gala at The Club on September 9, 2021. The “Evening of Dreams” will feature a silent auction from 5:30 to 7 p.m. with a dinner and live auction from 7 to 9 p.m.
“We’re excited to bring this event back and look forward to an evening of fellowship with our sponsors,” says Suzanne Owens, CEO of Sozo Children. “Aside from the dinner and auction, we’ll be sharing some great news about our future plans for our work in Uganda and some exciting projects in our local community as well,” she says. The annual dinner was canceled last year due to the pandemic but the ministry did hold its auction online.
The ministry began in 2010 when Owens and her team met a three-year-old girl who could not bathe due to lack of water and whose feet were raw from rat bites. Initially, the new ministry took in 17 children from one former children’s home. Now in its 11th year, Sozo operates Sozo Village, a 28-acre community that has grown to serve 130 children—providing housing, medical care, education, and more. Sozo Children also leads Kid’s Club—a twice-weekly Bible club for Ugandan children living around the village. As many as 400 children, some of whom walk miles to attend, share snacks and devotional time each week during Kid’s Club.
Sozo Children funds much of its operations through child sponsorships, donations, and through its thrift store in Avondale, Sozo Trading Co. The ministry also leads mission teams several times a year to Uganda. In 2022, the Sozo Children’s Choir will tour the United States for its 4th tour—The Miracle Tour—which serves as a mission trip for some of the children served by Sozo.
“During the dinner, some of the children will join us by video to share some of their own personal testimonies,” says Owens. “The children have such warm smiles and sweet voices to have experienced some of the things they have overcome in life,” she says. Children served by Sozo come to the ministry from situations of extreme generational poverty, abuse, neglect and often have been rescued from trafficking situations.
Sozo Children hopes to raise more than $175,000 at the dinner through the auction and table sponsorships. To sponsor a table, donate an auction item, or to purchase dinner tickets, visit http://www.sozochildren.org/2021dinner. To learn more about the mission of Sozo Children and how you can help, visit http://www.sozochildren.org