BECKLEY —
The Beckley Area Foundation’s annual free Labor Day Concert has a new feature.
This annual gift of music to the community will begin at 7 p.m. Monday at the Woodrow Wilson High School auditorium and, as in the past, features the exhilarating sounds of the West Virginia Symphony pops concert.
Honoring the foundation’s 25th anniversary, the public is encouraged to enjoy the music and become a philanthropist.
“One of the best things about living in Raleigh County and southern West Virginia is that everyone is already a philanthropist,” BAF board member and project chair Susan Pietrantozzi said. “We share with our neighbors, help a family in need and recently embraced the families of the UBB miners.
“West Virginians are a giving, caring people. ‘Everyone Can Be a Philanthropist’ will be a series of collections throughout the year that celebrates and focuses on that spirit. Beckley Area Foundation will kick off our activities at the Labor Day concert with the first two collections helping existing charities. Attendees are encouraged to help by bringing old cell phones and old eyeglasses for recycling.”
All eyeglasses collected the night of the concert will benefit Raleigh County Lions clubs. The Lions Clubs International website says its current international membership of 1.35 million shares a core belief that community is what people make it. In 1929, Helen Keller challenged Lions to become “knights of the blind in the crusade against darkness.”
Accepting that challenge, Lions clubs today are identified in their communities and nations for this defining cause. They raise donations through their SightFirst campaign while also supporting numerous sight programs including vision screening, eye banks and eyeglass recycling.
Beckley Area Foundation is asking the community to join Raleigh County Lions clubs in this crusade. Help by donating old eyeglasses which provide thousands with the gift of sight necessary for managing life’s daily tasks.
If you are unable to attend the free Labor Day pops concert, but wish to donate, drop old eyeglasses into the Lions Club receptacles located outside the Beaver and Beckley post offices, Shady Spring Branch Library, or inside the Rahall Company Store at the Beckley Exhibition Coal Mine.
Admission to the concert, which is sponsored by BAF, is free, with additional underwriting from the Carter Family Foundation, the West Virginia Commission on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
For information, call 304-253-3806.
