Last April, a few Glee fans in my school’s choir approached our director, Dr. Robin Garner, and convinced her to allow us to learn and perform a few choral arrangements from the hit TV series. Luckily for us Gleeks, Dr. Garner agreed, but on one condition: it had to be a benefit concert. The problem? We couldn’t decide which organization to support!
September arrived, and we had not decided whom our concert would benefit. That all changed after I attended the Clinton Global Initiative with the Girl Up team. It was then that I discovered my passion for raising awareness and funds for the campaign, and the girls it supports in the developing world. I came back from CGI on fire about Girl Up and literally ran to Dr. Garner and said, “Our benefit concert HAS to be for Girl Up! We’re an all-girls school; Girl Up is all about girls! It only makes sense that our concert benefits the campaign!” She agreed wholeheartedly, so we proposed our idea to the choir, who gave us an enthusiastic thumbs up! Our “Pop with a Purpose” concert was no longer just an intangible idea… it was becoming reality.
We had performers, we had the pop, we had a purpose; but we were still missing a huge part of our concert — the venue. A choir member’s father had recently purchased a downtown movie theater and was working to convert it into a performing arts venue. When his daughter informed him about what the choir was working on, her father graciously donated the Hippodrome for our concert! Thanks to his generosity, our concert is taking place in an awesome 422-seat auditorium!
The Ashley Hall Red Choir, Swing Choir, and the 7th and 8th grade choirs have been instrumental in making the planning and rehearsing of this concert a fun and exciting experience, and we can’t wait to happily raise our voices to raise money for an amazing campaign like Girl Up!
If you’re in Charleston on April 29, stop by the Hippodrome Widescreen Cinema and Performing Arts Center… we’d love to have you! For more information, please feel free to email me at popwithapurpose@yahoo.com.
Comments