Le Tour du Café a success
Salvador P. Sarmiento
Issue date: 2/26/10 Section: Opinion
In Support of Haitian Relief Efforts, Potsdam's downtown "Jack & Wezzie's" coffee house was a host to approximately 50 generous audience members and 3 to 5 performances each of the four Fridays from January 22, 2010 to February 12, 2010. "Le Tour du Café," as the event being noted was named, was successful in reaching various goals.
We met our goal of collecting at least $500, and actually collected $560.40, to send to Doctors Without Borders/ Medecins Sans Frontier (MSF). The speakers, Marquise Palliere (a Haitian SUNY Canton student studying to be a nurse) & Chelle Lindahl (a North-country community member), Roland Poirier (a business major at SUNY Potsdam) & John Green (chief of Canada's international rescue), grabbed the attention of the audience with their personal accounts of travesty and triumph in response to the earthquake and its aftershock. Their criticism for what press releases had reported versus what they had personally accounted for was contradicting. Hence, their stories were accompanied by the silence and focus of their audiences, and followed up with discussion. All four speakers and audiences showed a deep appreciation for the task at hand, to bring some relief to Haiti and awareness to our local community, for a country who's people & government have been mistreated for over a century.
Thankfully, various artists came to give their time and support to provide the life of the party. "Le Tour du Café's," musical contributions were provided by the generous contributions of Josh Lazo, Sam Whitesell, Peter House, Hannah Rosen, Olivia Quillio, Nicky Marcucci, Aaron Welcher, Sal Sarmiento, Ed Barrington, Steve Greenberg, Greg Bright, William Beebe, Marty Horn, Steven Lilly, Krysta Peterson, Jon Stuart, Jordan Smith, Dean Thornton, Malachy Gately, Matt Mckenna, Evan Bujold, Melissa Brown, William de le Motte, and Dylan Perrillo. This community is full of musicians, and we thank them for making their voices (and instruments) heard. What an honor it was to experience such an eclectic mix of music.
We met our goal of collecting at least $500, and actually collected $560.40, to send to Doctors Without Borders/ Medecins Sans Frontier (MSF). The speakers, Marquise Palliere (a Haitian SUNY Canton student studying to be a nurse) & Chelle Lindahl (a North-country community member), Roland Poirier (a business major at SUNY Potsdam) & John Green (chief of Canada's international rescue), grabbed the attention of the audience with their personal accounts of travesty and triumph in response to the earthquake and its aftershock. Their criticism for what press releases had reported versus what they had personally accounted for was contradicting. Hence, their stories were accompanied by the silence and focus of their audiences, and followed up with discussion. All four speakers and audiences showed a deep appreciation for the task at hand, to bring some relief to Haiti and awareness to our local community, for a country who's people & government have been mistreated for over a century.
Thankfully, various artists came to give their time and support to provide the life of the party. "Le Tour du Café's," musical contributions were provided by the generous contributions of Josh Lazo, Sam Whitesell, Peter House, Hannah Rosen, Olivia Quillio, Nicky Marcucci, Aaron Welcher, Sal Sarmiento, Ed Barrington, Steve Greenberg, Greg Bright, William Beebe, Marty Horn, Steven Lilly, Krysta Peterson, Jon Stuart, Jordan Smith, Dean Thornton, Malachy Gately, Matt Mckenna, Evan Bujold, Melissa Brown, William de le Motte, and Dylan Perrillo. This community is full of musicians, and we thank them for making their voices (and instruments) heard. What an honor it was to experience such an eclectic mix of music.
Be the first to comment on this story