This year’s Survivors Ball will be held at the Sheraton Dallas Hotel in downtown Dallas on Saturday.

The 4th annual formal event will honor survivors of many malicious and violent incidents, from domestic violence to sexual assaults, as well as survivors of deadly diseases such as HIV and cancer.

Survivors will share their stories throughout the evening of celebration, spotlighting their journeys and how they overcame the odds.

The survivors who will be honored on Saturday are both men and women. Some have survived suicide attempts, molestation, near-death experiences, and more.

The founder of the ball, Angelina Dunbar, told The Dallas Express she faced the same odds and overcame challenges; she wanted to honor survivors of similar situations today.

“I found myself in a rotating door, being a victim of domestic violence, stalked, beaten, kidnapped, and left temporarily blinded, as well as having cancer and having to rebuild my life over and over again,” said Dunbar.

She went “from being proud of everything I own to losing everything that I owned as well” and said she lost “everything but my faith.”

“It prompted me to realize that there are so many people who go through the same thing I do, but they don’t choose to live.”

The woman who intended to turn tragedy into triumph explained, “So I had to choose to live to overcome and to help people see that they can overcome it as well.”

The ball allows victims to acknowledge that they are “fearfully and wonderfully made,” despite difficult circumstances.

“I grew up in a domestic violence home,” said Kenya Mobley, speaking to The Dallas Express. “I was a witness at an early age to an attempted murder and suicide. I grew up in that environment for numerous years.”

Mobley found herself “in the same situation where gentlemen tried to take me from my kids,” she said, “and it took some grit and grace to leave that situation.”

“There is light at the end of the tunnel; you just have to keep going,” Mobley added. This will be Mobley’s first year attending the event.

On average, nearly 20 people per minute are physically abused by an intimate partner in the United States, and one in three women and one in four men have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner, according to data from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.

The Dallas Domestic Violence Task Force reported that family violence accounts for roughly 25% of all aggravated assaults. Of the 3,207 reported cases of aggravated assaults in Dallas in the first half of 2021, family violence accounted for 818 cases.

Since 2018, family violence homicides have accounted for 10-14% of all homicides in Dallas, according to the task force report.

The city of Dallas has launched a new domestic violence dashboard that tracks domestic violence crimes in the city.

The Survivor’s Ball will be held on Saturday, October 22, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Resources for victims of domestic violence can be found here.