Messiah College and local choirs commemorate World AIDS Day
November 26th, 2008
GRANTHAM, Pa. (Nov. 28, 2008) — We invite your coverage on Dec. 1 when local choirs commemorate World AIDS Day by performing songs from their new CD, “Lift Every Voice,” at 7 p.m. at Larsen Student Union at Messiah College. All proceeds from the sales of this CD will be donated to New Life Homes Trust, a network of orphanages in Kenya that has sheltered and cared for more than 1,000 infants affected by the AIDS pandemic and orphan crisis in that country.
Several local choirs will perform live, including God’s Army of Tenacity Choir from Harrisburg; Sci-Tech’s Lisa Waller Choir; Martin Luther King Baptist Church Choir; Bethany AME New Birth Generation Choir; Kingdom Embassy’s Radical for Christ Youth Choir, and Messiah College’s African Student Union. Emerson Powery, professor of Biblical studies at Messiah, is also expected to speak.
This limited edition CD is a collection of songs of faith and hope sung by school, church and community choirs from central Pennsylvania and Kenya and includes an introduction from Poet Maya Angelou. The discs were produced and recorded by a team of faculty and students from Messiah College and the Harrisburg School District. The CDs are available in several local bookstores and retail stores as well as online at www.amanimeanspeace.org. For the launch event on Dec. 1, CDs can be purchased for $12.
According to Jean Corey, director of the Amani Children’s Foundation, the CD was created with three goals in mind: “to raise awareness about both the beauty of Africa and its current pandemic of 14 million orphaned children; raising funds to care for abandoned infants; and connecting service, learning and the arts for young people in a meaningful project that creates a sense of empowerment that comes in realizing they have much to contribute to realizing the world’s problems.”
Messiah College, a private Christian college of the liberal and applied arts and sciences, enrolls more than 2,800 undergraduate students in more than 60 majors. Established in 1909, the primary campus is located in Grantham, Pa., near the state capital of Harrisburg. A satellite campus affiliated with Temple University is located in Philadelphia.