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Seven church choirs from Alexandria to Ashburn will gather at The Community Church in Ashburn Saturday, June 7, to do their part to help the food crisis in Haiti.
The benefit concert, Heal Haiti's Hunger, is sponsored by the Community Coalition for Haiti, a Christian nonprofit organization that works for the physical, educational, economic and spiritual development in Haiti's northern plateau.
The concert will be held from 2-5 p.m.
"We were trying to come up with events that would bring the community together. We thought this would be a great chance to connect communities to what's happening with hunger in the states as well as around the world," Karen Carr, director of the Community Coalition for Haiti, said.
In addition to the concert, residents are encouraged to donate canned goods and dry food goods to Messiah's Market, a food pantry at The Community Church that distributes food to area families.
All of the money raised through ticket sales will go to support the coalition's hunger initiatives in Haiti, Carr said. There are short-term programs for both infants and children as well as a school lunch program for Haiti's schools.
The money will also go to support the school garden program, which is designed to provide some long-term solutions to Haiti's food shortage.
"The students are taught how to grow vegetables and food and reforestation trees and fruit trees," Carr said.
One of the best long-term solutions for the country is to teach its citizens how to grow their own food, Carr said, but there is a resistance from the older generations.
"Agriculture is seen as the bottom of the barrel job, but its essential to the survival of the country. There is a lack of knowledge about how to do it."
The program, which has been going on for many years, Carr said, also has a co-op component, where students can sell the food that they grow, anything from potatoes and beans to pineapples and papayas. The children also plant mango and sour orange trees.
"They get money and they take that money home and that's a huge eye-opener for their parents," Carr said. "If you show the success, they'll begin to take in the information and begin to apply it in their own gardens at home. And the kids will grow up with that."
Carr said some of the older students are also beginning to get into canning and preserving food and some of the gardens have added a protein component, primarily goats, through animal husbandry.
It is estimated that one out of every five children in Haiti is malnourished and food costs in the country have risen 40 percent in less than a year. But the money raised at the June 7 event will show an immediate result in Haiti, as the programs for the next schools, scheduled to begin Sept. 1, are already under way.
"We already have all the coordinators in place. The gardeners and instructors have already been chosen. They will have already had the gardens composted and fenced in, water source for each individual garden," Carr said. "So they will be able to start the first day of school."
Tickets for the benefit concert are available by calling 703-880-4160 or can be purchased online at www.cchaiti.org. Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for children or a family pack of four tickets can be purchased for $40.
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