STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK

The new Men’s Second Chance Living will hold its first fundraiser with a screening of a 2018 film produced by Sun Valley residents Allyn Stewart and Kipp Nelson.

“Trial by Fire,” starring Jack O’Connell and Laura Dern, will be shown at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 12, at the Argyros Performing Arts Center in Ketchum.

A VIP reception with appetizers and beverages will take place at 6 p.m. And a question-and-answer will follow the screening. The Q&A will feature Flashlight Films Producer Allyn  Stewart, who also produced “Sully,” “Madeline” and “I Dreamed of Africa.” It will also feature Blaine County Drug Court Judge Mark Ingram.

Tickets for the film are $20, available at www.theargyros.org. VIP tickets are $100--$75 of which is tax deductible.

The film is the true-life account and heartbreaking story of a mother of two from Houston who fights against staggering odds for the freedom of a 23-year-old death row inmate from a small Texas town. The story is based on an article by writer David Granny that was featured in “The New Yorker.”

Twenty-three-year-old Cameron Todd Willingham was convicted for setting a fire that consumed his house killing all three of his young daughters just two days before Christmas in 1991. Everyone, it seems, rushed to judgment until one woman took up his cause.

Men’s Second Chance Living was formed in 2018 by Sonya Wilander, who had seen the need for a halfway home for men who are recovering from addiction during her five years managing the Blaine County Drug Court program.

She spearheaded the opening of a home in a former counseling office in old Hailey. There, men are offered safe, affordable sober housing and counseling and other support services as they transition back into society.

Nearly two-thirds of all drug user relapses take place within the first six months of the recovery process, Wilander says. The transitional home is structured to help mitigate the chance for relapse.

For more information, visit www.msclhouse.org.