The Kimberley Community Choir (KCC) held their spring concert on the final weekend of May. The concert, Songs of Protest and Progress, not only had a pertinent message, but also raised money for an important local cause.
The concert began with songs of work, including Rita McNeil's "Working Man" and Aubrey Beswick's "Watermelon Seller," before moving into songs of protest including "We Shall Overcome," "Do You Hear the People Sing" (from Les Misérables), "Sister Suffragette" from Mary Poppins and Oscar Peterson's "Hymn to Freedom."
They closed with songs that director Marta Zeegers said reflect "the progress that we have achieved and must continue to work towards," including John Wort Hannam's "Only Love" and Fred Small's "Everything Possible."
"We hope these messages of tolerance, peace and inclusivity land where they are needed," Zeegers said.
The choir performed to a completely sold-out audience, who Zeegers said were very generous with their extra donations. KCC donated the proceeds to the Spark Society for Youth, to further the work they do with youth in Kimberley.
Zeegers presented a cheque to Nicole Pearse, the new executive program director for the society on Wednesday, June 11, the first say they had just started up their new drop-in program, which already had a good group of kids in attendance.
Spark Youth Centre is a safe, supportive space where youth can meet new friends, play games, do crafts, enjoy free food and snacks or simply hang out, building positive relationships and a sense of belonging. "We hope to have enough funding in place going forward to be able to run full time after school drop in as well as special youth nights such as art, music, dance, movie and game tournaments."
"All donations and funding are going towards being able to get all these programs up and running," Pearse said.
The centre will have youth-drop ins after school, Wednesdays and Fridays from after school until 5:30 p.m. for youth in grades 5 to 12. On Thursdays, which are Farmer's Market nights, they have nights for the high school students. Youth can just come hang out and are also welcome to volunteer for the market's bike valet service which will be set up in front of the youth centre.
Some students from Selkirk will also set up a youth cafe project they pitched as part of their entrepreneurial class — a cafe led by youth, for youth and community.
"We’re starting with the Thursday Market nights, the cafe will be open to the public and the youth will be taking orders and serving ice cream floats and some other more refreshing mocktails as a fundraiser with all proceeds going towards opening the cafe for after school hours in the fall." Pearse explained.
The centre is also working with the Healthy Kimberley Food Recovery Program, who have been providing food for all their programming so far. For the summer, Healthy Kimberley has donated a fridge which will be stocked for youth to access whenever the Youth Centre is open.
Spark staff will also work with the kids on preparing healthy meals they can eat there or take home.
Pearse said she is excited to see kids in the centre already on the first day of the season. They have a new membership system established as well, where once kids are signed up with their emergency contact and other pertinent information, they can just drop-in, they don't need to sign up every time.
"The grade 6 and 7s and now most of the 8s have all come during school time with their classes, they’ve all been introduced to and are familiar with the space and they’re excited about it," Pearse said. "So that’s where we just really wanted to get these doors open because they’re excited to come and we are really happy to have a safe space for our youth to be after school and during the summer.
"I would like to add a very big thank you, it’s because of Marta and other folks supporting Spark Society, it’s just amazing. Marta actually came to us I believe. I only started about five weeks ago, so the choir fundraiser was already in the works. It’s great because in addition to the monetary donation she brought all this attention to us with her event. That’s what it’s all about, bringing the community together and it’s for these kids and it’s working. They’re all already really engaged."
