World Changers benefit concert features wide variety of music
Armed with a guitar, three different harmonicas and a microphone, Lake Orion senior Joe Hertler was one of many performers for the World Changers benefit concert hoping to use music to improve the lives of orphaned children in Uganda.
The benefit concert kicked off Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. in the Bovee University Center's third floor auditorium. About 50 people attended. President of World Changers Gina Wymore, a West Bloomfield junior, gave a quick introduction, and the barbershop quartet Ebb and Flow was the first to perform. They were followed by a jazz sextet and New Hampshire graduate student Andrew Cote alongside Grand Rapids junior Jordan Reed. The concert ended performances by Arab-influenced group Wissal and Hertler.
Cote, who convinced many of the bands to participate, wanted to have a variety of music and sounds at the concert.
"This was a great opportunity to be able to have more purpose behind some of the music I write," Cote said. "Sometimes we get caught up in the midst of being in Michigan, not just with music, but with everything else going on in the world."
The concert also featured an informative video from an orphanage in Haiti, complete with many shots of children from that orphanage. Pastor Carla Ives, founder of Heart Cry International, spoke during an intermission about the importance of taking trips to help impoverished children.
"I remember a young man showed me his home, and it was a black garbage bag. When it would rain, he slept under it, and when it wasn't raining, he slept over it," Ives said. "My heart is to be a voice for the children who can't speak for themselves."
World Changers is a local branch of Heart Cry International. Heart Cry International operates orphanages, rallies sponsorships for children and completes mission trips.
"The music was really great, and the concert itself was informative. I'm really thinking about getting involved with World Changers," said Midland freshman Alexis Loebig. "I learned about the help that people need and that I can actually do something to make a difference."
World Changers meets at 9 p.m. on the first and third Monday of each month in the Heart Cry International office next to Student Book Exchange, 209 E. Bellows St.
