An Oak Park church will host a benefit concert next month for a nonprofit that works to help female survivors of sex trafficking and addiction.
Singer-songwriter Bobby Jo Valentine will perform at 8 p.m. March 9 at First United Methodist Church of Oak Park, 324 N. Oak Park Ave. The event is nonprofit organization Magdalene House Chicago’s inaugural benefit concert, called “All Our Voices.”
Magdalene House Chicago was started in 2015, to assist the thousands of women in the Chicago area who are survivors of trafficking, abuse, prostitution or addiction, said board president Katie Eccles.
The concert will help raise funds needed for a sober-living home in Cook County for women in need, which they hope to see open in 2019.
“We are sort of growing and evolving,” Eccles said.
The benefit concert was already in the works, Eccles said, when they heard about the recent closure of Anne’s House, the Salvation Army’s long-term residential treatment program for young female trafficking victims.
“It’s upsetting to all of us, because we feel like we can’t move fast enough,” she said. “We need our house open yesterday. … No one wants to see girls who are stable have the rug pulled out from under them.”
Currently, Magdalene House Chicago offers presentations and support events at Chicago area churches, but does not yet have the ability to take in residents, Eccles said. She mentioned that, fortunately, other organizations have stepped up to help place Anne’s House residents.
“It really has brought it much more to light that what we’re trying to do is so important,” she said. “We are a group that recognizes so much the importance of a safe home in terms of healing … but we also know that healing takes more than just a home.”
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Director of development Samantha Kyrkostas said research showed Magdalene House Chicago supporters were looking for ways to gather and support the organization as a community, hence the concert event.
As they work to raise between $500,000 and $800,000 to buy and renovate a house they can turn into a sober-living home — which they hope can house six to eight women at the outset — Eccles said an angel donor has agreed to provide matching grants.
Once a house has been secured, Magdalene House Chicago will offer up to two years of rent-free housing, job training, health and legal services and recovery programs, according to the MHC website.
“We are nearing the $100,000 mark, but we are very much in the start-up phase,” Eccles said.
Familiar with Magdalene House from time spent in Nashville, where the organization originated, the Rev. Dr. Katherine Paisley at First United Methodist Church said the kind of donor Magdalene House Chicago is hoping to attract is progressive and able to contribute, which she believes describes many in the congregation and the greater community.
“This is a ministry that is really near and dear to my heart,” she said. “The sex trafficking reality is something that is almost beyond belief, that it could happen in this country.”
Eccles and Kyrkostas hope the concert draws more than 100 attendees. Tickets are $25, or $10 for students. For more information, visit www.magdalenehousechicago.org/events.html.
Caitlin Mullen is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.