The parish of St Bernadette’s, Erskine decided to hold a concert to raise funds for Let The Children Live! so, beginning in October 2013, a group of them met each Tuesday evening in order to ‘plan and practice’. They wanted to involve as many parishioners as possible, including young people from their Youth Cafe and local Caritas Award Group, and much enjoyment was had by all. By December 21st, the date of the concert, they were ready.
The first part of the concert was centred on the charity, and a Powerpoint Presentation was given, showing our children in Colombia, whilst the concert group sang Beauty for Brokeness. Two more carols followed and then everyone lit candles whilst John Rutter’s Candlelight Carol was played.
The scene thus set, there followed ‘I Dreamed a Dream’ by a teenage parishioner plus ‘O Holy Night’ and ‘Born in the Night’ by two adult soloists. In addition, the young granddaughter of a parishioner did her ballet interpretation of Eva Cassidy singing ‘Fields of Gold’.
The final part of the concert was given over to audience participation with a sing-a-long that involved various Carols and Christmas songs, AND ‘ a very energetic version’ of the Twelve Days of Christmas, which was so energetic that parishioners were still feeling stiff from their exertions on the following Sunday! I can only imagine that the Lords had been ‘a-leapingl and the Ladies ‘dancing’!
The result of all this was a donation to the work of Let The Children Live! totalling £332.50 for which we say a big ‘Thank You’! We hope you’ll do the same thing next year, St. Bernadette’s! And, we hope that other parishes and groups might consider doing the same thing or something similar. Have some fun and fundraise at the same time. You might even consider doing a Pantomime! Now there’s a challenge for you!