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Passing on the word
Mar. 14th, 2011 12:44 pmFrom ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
17catherines, a fund-raising appeal.
Total explanation here, short version below:
It's about Christchurch, New Zealand, and a bunch of teenagers known as the Linwood College Orchestra. They go to a Christchurch school that is nice, but poor (and currently closed until it can pass building inspection). It has kids from all sorts of backgrounds, with not a lot of cash, but with really fantastic teachers and an arts programme that keeps kids massively motivated to both attend school and achieve academically.
Most of the kids in the orchestra can't afford to own their own instruments, but the school has a good rental system and a music director, Tony Ryan, who has spent the last 30 years building something truly special. For a taste of what they can do, click here and enjoy a couple of the orchestra videos.
My friends Peter and Vicki Hyde are two of the Linwood parents and like most of the school community they've spent the last two years trying to raise money to send the orchestra on an Invitational Tour of Europe. It's an amazing trip – Paris, Rome, Bucharest – culminating in a performance at Westminster Abbey on Anzac Day. This last is a massive thing in itself, more on that below.
With enormous amounts of support from the local community, and an incredible number of sausage sizzles, cake stalls, busking days and calendar sales, they'd raised most of the funds for the trip but were still NZ$50,000 short. They had every confidence they would be able to raise this in the big efforts they had planned for the last month and a half before the kids set off.
Until their city was torn apart on the 22nd of February by a massive earthquake that has claimed hundreds of lives and left thousands without homes and workplaces. Even the theatre where they were to have played a gala fundraising concert is now unusable.
It's not rebuilding houses, or roads, or the school, or the Christchurch sewage system (which I understand is something of an urgent problem right now) granted. But it is keeping some semblance of what was previously normal, and achieving something they have worked very hard on. Please, have a look at the post. And if you're in the right area at the right time turn up to Westminster Abbey on Anzac Day, and hopefully they'll be playing there.
17catherines, a fund-raising appeal.Total explanation here, short version below:
It's about Christchurch, New Zealand, and a bunch of teenagers known as the Linwood College Orchestra. They go to a Christchurch school that is nice, but poor (and currently closed until it can pass building inspection). It has kids from all sorts of backgrounds, with not a lot of cash, but with really fantastic teachers and an arts programme that keeps kids massively motivated to both attend school and achieve academically.
Most of the kids in the orchestra can't afford to own their own instruments, but the school has a good rental system and a music director, Tony Ryan, who has spent the last 30 years building something truly special. For a taste of what they can do, click here and enjoy a couple of the orchestra videos.
My friends Peter and Vicki Hyde are two of the Linwood parents and like most of the school community they've spent the last two years trying to raise money to send the orchestra on an Invitational Tour of Europe. It's an amazing trip – Paris, Rome, Bucharest – culminating in a performance at Westminster Abbey on Anzac Day. This last is a massive thing in itself, more on that below.
With enormous amounts of support from the local community, and an incredible number of sausage sizzles, cake stalls, busking days and calendar sales, they'd raised most of the funds for the trip but were still NZ$50,000 short. They had every confidence they would be able to raise this in the big efforts they had planned for the last month and a half before the kids set off.
Until their city was torn apart on the 22nd of February by a massive earthquake that has claimed hundreds of lives and left thousands without homes and workplaces. Even the theatre where they were to have played a gala fundraising concert is now unusable.
It's not rebuilding houses, or roads, or the school, or the Christchurch sewage system (which I understand is something of an urgent problem right now) granted. But it is keeping some semblance of what was previously normal, and achieving something they have worked very hard on. Please, have a look at the post. And if you're in the right area at the right time turn up to Westminster Abbey on Anzac Day, and hopefully they'll be playing there.
