PERFORMERS ADDED TO ONELIFE LA LINEUP ON JANUARY 20
January 18, 2018  |  By:   |  Archbishop Gomez, Press Releases  |  

Singer and philanthropist Yesenia Flores will perform for tens of thousands at Los Angeles Historic Park; YouTube Stars Angelica Gallegos and José Esparza will perform song written especially for event celebrating the beauty and dignity of every human life

Inspiring speakers and performers will join Archbishop José H. Gomez at the fourth annual OneLife LA, on Saturday, January 20, at Los Angeles Historic Park in downtown Los Angeles, for a large-scale event uniting people of all backgrounds throughout Southern California to celebrate the beauty and dignity of every human life from conception to natural death.

“OneLife LA means sharing the love of God with others – especially those who are poor and forgotten, and those who are alone and excluded,” said Archbishop Gomez. “Join me and thousands in declaring a commitment to valuing and protecting all human life, particularly the most vulnerable in our society.”

OneLife seeks to promote a culture of life, where every human life is dignified, especially the most vulnerable and marginalized. Themed “Made for greater,” the 2018 event will begin at noon with a walk led by Archbishop Gomez from the birthplace of the city at Olvera Street to the new Los Angeles State Historic Park. It will include a roster of renowned performers, and international and national voices sharing their personal and life-affirming stories.

In 2008, after years of a successful secular career, Yesenia Flores became a leading Spanish-language Catholic speaker and musician. She will perform at OneLife LA from her roster of six successful praise albums. Flores is a long-time humanitarian serving the homeless, children in foster care and youth in the Southern California.

Singer and songwriter Jodi King and her husband, bassist Chris Rademaker, known as the duo Love & the Outcome will also perform OneLife LA. Their deep faith and their young son Milo, inspire a mainstay of Christian radio.

YouTube stars, Angelica Gallegos and José Esparza, will perform a song together that they wrote specifically for OneLife LA. For the fourth consecutive year, the Conjunto Nacional Salsa Band will close the event.

Keynote speaker Karen Gaffney, an advocate for the inclusion of people with physical disadvantages in families, the workplace, and schools, will share her own experiences and challenges as a person born with Down syndrome. She is the first person with Down syndrome to swim the English Channel. “I hope I am giving back to God by standing up for Down syndrome and helping people see that it is a life worth living!” she told the Archdiocesan publication, Angelus News. Speakers and presenters include:

• Patricia Heaton is an Emmy-award winning actor of Everybody Loves Raymond and currently stars as Frankie Heck in the ABC sitcom, The Middle. She is the star of the movie, Mom’s Night Out. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2012. Patricia is an outspoken advocate for life.

• Myrka Dellanos is a two-time Emmy-Award winning broadcast journalist. As the founder of Missions Reaching Out Compassionately, which serves underprivileged women and children in South Florida and Latin America, she works with homeless children, orphans, displaced and abused women and former gang members. In 2008, she was diagnosed with diabetes, and she is an active educator of how to live successfully with the disease.

• Jose Arellano is a navigator who leads a team of trainees at Homeboy Industries. He helps former gang members as himself to fill out job applications, he connects them with services, or simply offers them hope to persevere and turn their lives around, as he did. At an early age, Jose excelled in school, being part of the Gifted and Talented education program, but eventually he followed on the footsteps of family members involved in gang culture. At the age of 12, he became a gang member, and at 15, he landed in juvenile hall and then prison. He has not looked back.

• Bishop Charles E. Blake is the Presiding Bishop for the Church of God in Christ. He is the pastor of West Angeles Church of God in Christ, with more than 24,000 members. Bishop Blake is an outspoken advocate for life and has worked on a number of humanitarian programs. In 2009, President Obama asked him to serve on the White House Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. Bishop Blake is married to Lady Mae Lawrence Blake. They have three children and eight grandchildren.

• Damon Clarke Owens is the founder and executive director of JoyToB, a ministry centered on St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body. An international speaker on marriage, family, adoption, and Theology of the Body, Damon presented at the World Meeting of Families in 2015, and served as Chairman of the 2016 International Theology of the Body Congress. Damon and his wife Melanie live outside Philadelphia with their eight children.

• Bishop W.C. Martin has been the pastor of Bennett Chapel Missionary Baptist Church since 1985. Through his leadership, his 200-person congregation in Possum Trot, Texas adopted 76 children from foster care. He has dedicated his ministry to promote adoption of minority children, serving since 2001 as a volunteer on the advisory committee for the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Service.

“In the heart of Downtown LA, we will proclaim that every single person was made for greater things. We were made for greater love, hope, courage, peace, joy,” said Kathleen Buckley-Domingo, director of the Archdiocese’s Office of Life, Justice and Peace, which spearheads the event.

For more information on 2018 OneLife LA speakers, visit http://onelifela.org/speakers-2018/, or watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ7jDgO286U.

OneLife LA was first celebrated on January 17, 2015. OneLife LA 2017 drew nearly 20,000 to downtown Los Angeles in celebration of the beauty and dignity of every human life. For the 2018 event details, please visit http://onelifela.org/event-details/, and for 2017 event highlights, visit http://onelifela.org/highlights/. Visit www.onelifela.org for more information. For OneLife LA updates, visit https://www.facebook.com/1lifela/, https://www.instagram.com/1lifela/, https://twitter.com/1lifela?lang=en,
https://www.youtube.com/user/1lifela, and follow #OneLifeLA.

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