Local groups support upcoming concert to benefit South Africans
Cate Marquis
Special to the Jewlish Light
What if your child could not go to school because she did not have a uniform? That is case in South Africa, where an old law requires student uniforms for school attendance. But the St. Louis Chap-ter of the American Jewish Committee and Congregation B'nai Amoona are helping out, by co-sponsoring a benefit concert to help provide those uniforms to impoverished South African children.
The interfaith Celebrating Life concert takes place on Sunday, Oct. 26, at 6 p.m. at the St. Francis Xavier College Church at Lindell and Grand on the St. Louis University campus. The featured singers will be Diana Solomon-Glover, of New York's Riverside Church, and Cantor Sharon Nathanson, of Congregation B'nai Amoona in St. Louis. Other performers include Dello Thedford and the Gospel Symphonic Choir of St. Louis and B'nai Amoona Zamarin Youth Choir.
In addition to the singers, there will be comments from local dignitaries such as St. Louis County Executive Charlie Dooley, who is serving as Honorary Co-Chair and a talk by Reverend Linda Tarry-Chard, founder and president of the Project People Foundation, which provides the uniforms for the South African students. Author and journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault serves as Honorary Patron and Benefactor Chairs are the Riverside Church and Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, both of New York.
Tickets are $30 and available from B'nai Amoona. They can be purchased by calling Barbara Shechter at B'nai Amoona at (314) 576-9990 or (314) 367-8264, or from the Project People Foundation website at www.ProjectPeopleFoundation.org. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.
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November 15, 2007
Atlanta Welcomes Concert Series To Ebenezer
Cynthia Post
The Atlanta edition of Project People Foundation’s Celebrating Life: Concert Series – a benefit for women, children and youth in South Africa’s AIDS-ravaged communities – will be held Sunday, Nov. 18 at 4 p.m. at Ebenezer Baptist Church, 407 Auburn Ave., N. E., under the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor.
Project People Foundation, a New York City-based charitable organization that focuses on economic and social empowerment of disadvantaged women and children in South Africa, has enlisted the help of Atlanta dignitaries and a coalition of churches and faith based organizations, including the Atlanta Black-Jewish Coalition, Atlanta’s African-American church community, and the American Jewish Committee – Atlanta Chapter, to join forces in support of the Celebrating Life Concert.
The purpose of the Celebrating Life: Concert Series, which will be presented across the nation over the next two years, is to provide a platform to inspire and effect change while celebrating life, bridging communities, and building hope.
Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole, president emerita of Spelman College in Atlanta and Bennett College for Women in North Carolina, and Elaine B. Alexander, American Jewish Committee – Atlanta Chapter, are honorary chairs for the event.
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November 15, 2007
Multicultural, inter-faith benefit concert stirs Atlanta
On November 18, Atlanta will host the second edition of the Celebrating Life: Concert Series at Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, under Senior Pastor, the Rev, Raphael Warnock. The multi-cultural and inter-faith benefit concert will support Project People Foundation in its quest to aid the AIDS-ravaged communities in South Africa and build bridges across multi-cultural communities in the USA.
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April 24, 2007
Project People creates bridge for S. Africa's less fortunate
Howard Goodman
Palm Beach columnist
Voices soared, the piano jumped and 500 people swayed and clapped their hands.
It was a great afternoon in church.
There were whites and blacks, old people and young, Jews and Christians across denominations and one brave teenager from South Africa.
It was a concert, a prayer meeting, a fundraiser and a call for citizen action.
The event was called "Celebrating Life," and it brought together lots of people who wouldn't normally celebrate together.
"You had the lady from Palm Beach talking to the lady next to her, from Riviera Beach," said the Rev. Linda Tarry-Chard, who created both the event and the foundation it benefited, "sitting in front of the lady from Singer Island, in back of the guy from Boynton Beach."
The Florida Atlantic University Gospel Choir sang along with Ann Turnoff, a cantor from Boca Raton, and Diana Solomon-Glover, lead soloist at The Riverside Church in New York City.
They shook the Cason United Methodist Church in Delray Beach, a mostly white church with a black female pastor, the Rev. Sharon Austin, as if to straddle Swinton Avenue, the historic color line when Delray was a segregated city.
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Apr 15, 2007
Concert Series Helps Fund Humanitarian Assistance
Lisa Goddard
A blending of faiths and cultures expressed through music will highlight "Celebrating Life," the first in a nationwide series of concerts to benefit the Project People Foundation of New York will be held in Delray Beach.
The concert is set for 3 p.m. April 22 at Cason United Methodist Church. It will support the foundation's efforts to provide humanitarian assistance, leadership training and education for South African women and children in need.
Soprano Diana Solomon-Glover, of The Riverside Church of New York, will be the featured guest artist in the program. The Florida Atlantic University Gospel Choir and independent cantor Ann Turnoff of Boca Raton also will perform.
The choir will sing three numbers.
"We'll do For Every Mountain, a piece arranged by Kurt Carr. It's a gospel piece with a flavor of the old Negro spirituals. About 15 men and women from the choir will perform," said Pamela Byrd, associate director of FAU's office for multi-cultural affairs, which oversees the choir. "We'll also do Giants, a contemporary gospel song, and a medley of more traditional gospel songs."
A commissioned work, Dreams are Never Free, by composer Deborah Nodel Gordon, will be sung by Solomon-Glover and Turnoff. The piece will include words from a poem by 16-year-old South African AIDS orphan Manini Mkhabela.
