You Gotta Believe’s 30th Anniversary Gala Honors Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley Jackson: Three Decades of Forever Families

You Gotta Believe's 30th Anniversary Gala Honors Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley Jackson: Three Decades of Forever Families

On May 4, You Gotta Believe gathered the Broadway community and the foster care advocacy world beneath the Catalan-tile arches of Guastavino's for its 30th Anniversary Gala. Hosted by Ta'Nika Gibson, currently starring in Ragtime on Broadway and herself a former foster youth who was legally adopted in her twenties, the milestone evening honored longtime supporters Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley Jackson and brought a roster of Broadway voices into service of an organization devoted to finding permanent families for the youth most often passed over in the adoption system.

The Cause

Founded in 1995, You Gotta Believe is the only New York City-based national organization devoted solely to placing pre-teens, teens, and young adults in foster care with permanent families. In thirty years, it has facilitated more than 400 adoptions. The wider need remains formidable: more than 400,000 young people are currently in the United States foster care system, and nearly 20,000 are at risk of aging out each year without a permanent family. The Gala served as both a celebration of how far the organization has come and a reminder of how much remains.

The Honorees

Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley Jackson have stood with You Gotta Believe since 2015, raising more than $5 million for the cause over the course of the partnership. Together, they created and produce Voices: Stars for Foster Kids, the annual benefit concert that brings major Broadway, television, and film talent to the mission.

Seth Rudetsky: SiriusXM Broadway afternoon host, three-time Emmy-nominated comedy writer, author of the Seth's Broadway Diary series.
James Wesley Jackson: Writer, producer, co-creator of the pandemic-era livestream Stars in the House, and an adoptive parent himself.
Together: Conceived and produced ten editions of Voices: Stars for Foster Kids. Created Stars in the House, which has run more than 500 episodes since 2020. Recipients of the Drama Desk Award, the MAC Award, and most recently the TDF Founders Award.

Highlights of the Evening

A Ragtime homecoming. Gibson and Brian Stokes Mitchell, who originated the role of Coalhouse Walker in the original Broadway production of Ragtime, performed "Wheels of a Dream" together: a generational pairing inside a song about the future families build for their children.
A fitting Aladdin moment. Ainsley Melham, fresh off his run as the title role in Aladdin, sang "Proud of Your Boy," a number that carried particular weight at a benefit centered on parents and children finding one another.
A milestone moment. hirty years on, the organization marked more than 400 adoptions facilitated, with the Gala focused as much on the work ahead as on the legacy behind it.