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On Saturday night Channel 7 and Kremandala joined forces for the Help Haiti Benefit Concert and Telethon. With assistance form NICH and the Belzie Music Agency – the event was held at the Bliss Center – and it was a tremendous illustration of just how committed Belizeans.

Jacqueline Godwin Reporting,
Over 100 performing artists, dancers and players of instruments touched the stage on Saturday night at the Bliss Center.

There were 8 bands, 19 assorted soloists, 3 poets, 11 rappers, 13 dancers and eight testimonials in a show that ran for six hours 13 minutes – it started at 6:00 and finished at minutes after midnight. Veteran observers say, it’s the first time in recall that a benefit concert of such scale has been pulled off in Belize and despite the volume of performers - it was all organized so that they played continuously – with each act blending seamlessly into the next.

The performers played the full gamut of styles, from rap, to dancehall to country, to punta, to soul, to gospel, to soca, to brukdown, to paranda... it was, without overstatement, an all-star, all sound event.

And while that’s what happened on stage – behind the curtain – a crew of 5 volunteers worked like mad – constantly fine tuning and re-arranging a set list with dozens of acts.

And those stars not only gave of their talent, they also gave up their ego, working in friendship backstage – no one was high profiling – it was a community of artists.

Just so at the phone banks where again volunteers took hundreds of calls as media personalities from KREM and Channel 7 called out to the public for pledges. And Mose Hyde and camera-man Dennis Peyrefitte went so far as to break dance for dollars.

In the end, the total in pledges and from the door was $36,000 and with the Oak Foundation matching the proceeds at the door, it came up to just over $40,000 – an impressive figure – especially when one considers that the pledges came from regular folks watching the event on TV or listening on radio – there were no outsized corporate donations.

A genuine effort – from the community of artists and the wider community on a night to remember, a night when “Help Haiti” was more than just a sentiment, it was the spirit of the evening.

We thank Tony Rath for that photos collage at the end of the story. You can see all his photos of the benefit concert event on Flickr [Click here to see it.]. And while everyone volunteered their time and talents, special thanks go to the sound engineer Al Obando who worked for free from Friday night more or less straight through to Sunday morning to get the sound just right.

Again, the total raised in pledges was $36,000 nd of that four thousand was from the gate. Oak Foundation committed the match the gate and so that brings the final to forty thousand dollars. All the proceeds and pledges have been handed over to the Red Cross.