AllTogetherNow Concert

Our homeschooling family chorus had the annual concert last Saturday. Here's a writeup by Rachael Barlow (co-director #4; the one not mentioned in the article!) about the concert (published on http://www.nashobapublishing.com/chronicle; the link is most likely outdated by the time you read this.). It ends with a nice proclamation by me!

Local Chorus Concert Benefits Acton’s Habitat for Humanity Project

On May 22nd, the latest Habitat for Humanity project in Acton will start to take form at a ground-breaking ceremony. The group hopes to have an affordable house built by mid-December for the DeSouza family, who currently lives in Leominster. Reportedly, the way Habitat for Humanity works is that the family and their friends, must donate 500 hours of sweat to the project and then they can purchase their home at cost. The home is deeded to always be “affordable housing”.

Bill Schumacher, who is on the committee overseeing this project, explains that “this is a tangible way to get involved. We can help build a house for a local family while bringing awareness to the need for affordable housing in our own communities. Otherwise it’s just an issue on the news. This makes it personal.”

The Habitat for Humanity’s North East Central office has volunteers from many local towns including Littleton, Acton and Stow.

Hearing about this opportunity, the All Together Now Family Chorus decided that their May 19th concert would benefit the Acton Habitat for Humanity project. It is the chorus’ hope to use donations from concert attendees to pay for at least 2 square feet of living space in this local home.

The chorus chose the local Habitat for Humanity charity because of its dedication to families and its proximity to the chorus’ Littleton practice site. The All Together Now Family Chorus, founded in 2003, is an intergenerational chorus whose mission is to help families enjoy making music. Unlike other choruses, which are run by staff paid to select, arrange and direct music, the All Together Now Family Chorus is an entirely volunteer-run organization: the directors, accompanists, and steering committee all donate their time.

In spite of the leaders being volunteers, the quality of what they produce is reputed to be quite good. “I’m thrilled to see that the chorus is able to enjoy increasingly more challenging music as time passes”, says Christina Kennedy, a director from Stow.

Their concert, titled "Out of this World," follows a space theme and includes songs that range from old standards to less well-known space novelty songs. "I was pleasantly surprised at how wide a range of song styles we could sing while still keeping to our theme," says one of the group's directors, Jan Power of Concord. Manoj Padki, a director who resides in Lowell proclaims “it's sure to be fun for the whole family!”