On the night of Friday, Could 2, 2025, a profound cultural shift will happen within the coronary heart of Washington, D.C., as changemakers, advocates, and allies from throughout the nation collect on the historic Watergate Lodge for the inaugural Venture Blackbird Gala. Timed with Psychological Well being Consciousness Month, this groundbreaking occasion indicators excess of a celebration—it marks the rise of a nationwide motion decided to rewrite the story round psychological well being, particularly in communities which have lengthy been ignored.
On the helm of this motion is Alexandra Miles, Founder and CEO of Venture Blackbird Inc. A Savannah, Georgia-based actor, producer, and nonprofit chief, Miles is not any stranger to storytelling that transforms. With levels in Enterprise and Effective Arts from Boston College and SCAD, and a ardour for narrative filmmaking, she has fused artwork and advocacy in a robust mission: to dismantle the disgrace surrounding psychological well being and to open entry to care for many who want it most.
A Goal-Pushed Night with Nationwide Affect
The Venture Blackbird Gala is not only an invite—it’s a name to motion. Backed by a brand new partnership with Talkspace, this occasion will straight fund free remedy for 10,500 highschool college students. Moreover, the Gala will assist Venture Blackbird double its annual attain, connecting over 20,000 people in 2025 with instruments, schooling, and therapeutic help.
This isn’t a quiet fundraiser—it’s a motion in movement. The night time’s programming consists of highly effective activations, performances, and audio system addressing lived experiences and advocating for consciousness and entry to care. Voices from politics, leisure, D.C. cooks, enterprise, and healthcare will come collectively underneath one roof to push ahead a imaginative and prescient of psychological wellness for all—empowering the youth to grow to be the following leaders.
Why It Issues—And Why It Wants You
Venture Blackbird was created with a transparent and pressing objective: to convey consciousness and entry to psychological well being care to all people, and to make psychological well being conversations protected in all communities. The group shines a lightweight on consuming issues, trauma, anxiousness, and melancholy in populations which have been excluded from mainstream psychological well being conversations for a lot too lengthy.
Via reside occasions—together with the screening of its award-winning brief movie Blackbird, impressed by true occasions—Venture Blackbird facilitates actual conversations, reflection, and entry to psychological well being professionals. These experiences are designed not simply to lift consciousness, however to ship actual, actionable help.
And now, along with your help at this inaugural Gala, that work expands.
An Viewers of Affect—A Second of Momentum
Anticipated friends embody influential policymakers, nationwide psychological well being leaders, and cultural changemakers—all convening to sign a brand new period in psychological well being fairness. Featured audio system corresponding to Dan Gillison, CEO of the Nationwide Alliance on Psychological Sickness (NAMI), and Natalie Cummins, EVP of Talkspace, will share pressing insights and daring visions for the longer term. Demonstrations from D.C. cooks can be featured all through the night time as they, too, share their lived experiences with psychological well being challenges.
That is your alternative to interact straight with the motion—whether or not you’re an entrepreneur, philanthropist, policymaker, or passionate group chief. Attendees will depart not solely impressed, however activated—with new networks, new methods, and new objective.
The place to Be When Historical past Occurs
Venture Blackbird Inaugural Gala
Friday, Could 2, 2025
6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
The Watergate Lodge | Washington, D.C.
Theme: #ShedShame Round Psychological Well being
This night is for everybody who believes that entry to psychological well being care shouldn’t be a privilege. It’s for many who wish to transfer the needle on social change. It’s for many who are able to create a future the place nobody has to endure in silence.
Come to the Gala. Be part of the dialog. Gasoline the motion. That is what transformation appears like.