report from the benefit event

On Sunday, June 17th, Vicki and I hosted a house concert in her home--our first of many fundraisers for the nonprofit organization I work with, Wuqu' Kawoq. We had advertised on KKFI, Kansas City's community radio station, and had passed out fliers all over the neighborhood and hung posters in Westport (posters like the rad one in the previous post.) About 40 people came. It was a magical evening.

I gathered together a band to open and close the night. It has become affectionately known as The Emily Tummons Peace Love and Harmony Band. We don't have any plans to perform outside of this summer house concert series. But who knows.

Brian Longfellow: guitar, harmonica, singing

Beth Tummons: ukulele, singing

Bobette Goetz: fiddle, singing

Nick Baker: percussion, singing

Michaela Meckel: banjo, fiddle

Emily Tummons: mandolin, singing

We played If I Needed You, I Told Them All About You, and Yellow Is the Color of My True Love's Hair to start the night off. Then we invited Desmond Poirier up. He is the lead singer of the Rivercity Revelators. It was a rare treat to get to hear him perform a handful of his songs acoustically. My favorite was Nothing's Ever Easy in Rhode Island.

We came to the halfway point of the evening, so I went up to talk about Wuqu' Kawoq. I pointed out the brochures we had printed up (which are AWESOME--thank you Anne, Rachel, and Peter), and directed people's attention to the donation station.

At that table were about 50 copies of a recording Nick Baker and I made especially for the event--the song, This Is My Maker's World. We had made it available for free to anyone who made a donation of any amount. Thanks to Mike and Jeremy for helping make the CD sleeves with the WK logo and info, and duplicating it.

I taught everyone how to say Thank You in Kaqchikel (matyox), and the sound of 40 people saying "matyox" enthusiastically back to me almost brought tears to my eyes. Then I talked for about 10 minutes about my experience in the highlands of Guatemala, how I met Peter and got to help out in the medical clinics he had started up. I explained why we started Wuqu' Kawoq (a little background on the awfulness of Guatemalan government health care and history of oppression of indigenous people) and described a few of the projects we are involved with.

Then I sang the song Angel Band with my sister Beth, and sang part of the song in Kaqchikel, so everyone could hear how the language sounded in music.

Then we invited Joel Kraft up to the front, our next local musician donating his time for the evening. He sang 4 or 5 songs, and I got to sing harmony with him.

Last on the bill was the ET PLH Band reprise. To close the night we sang Little Boxes, Puff the Magic Dragon, Day Is Done, and I'll Fly Away.

Thanks to everyone who helped make the night a success. We raised $104. I'm looking forward to the next one.