It was an evening of stories, words, songs, and voices that lingered in the late-summer air long after the day had ended.

The people who gathered there had one purpose: to bring hope to a region that is in desperate need of it. From established writers like Darnell Arnoult (a SIBA Book of the Year award winner) and Larry D. Thacker to KRCC employees and clients, an unspoken pact was made to lift up their voices and light a path, to say the truth out loud all night long about the struggles of mental illness and drug addiction.