Katrina benefit concert, Friday, Marblehead

[paineinthearse]

Received by email from Susan Levine. Personal recommendation, ALL the musicians scheduled to play are excellent!

Hey All,

This Friday, September 16th I have the honor of participating in a very special benefit concert. My good friend John Boehmer has put together a wonderful line-up of performers to raise money for members of his family whose lives have been devastated by Hurricane Katrina. I have included John's account of their plight in this email. For those of you who don't know John, he is a wonderful and generous human being. Helping his family get back on its feet will have a ripple effect and help the entire community. Please join us for this important event.

Here are the details:
When: Friday, September 16, 7:30 pm
Where: the Unitarian Universalist Church, 28 Mugford Street, Marblehead, MA. [phone]
The price of admission: $15.00 per person.
With: Oen Kennedy, Raymond Gonzalez, Sandi Hammond, Tom Driscoll, Angela Mascieli and John Gerard

Thanks!
Susan Levine
http://www.susanjlevine.com

John's Story:

By now, many of you are aware that my family in Ocean Springs and Biloxi Mississippi endured hurricane Katrina when it made land fall on the 29th of August. It wasn't until three days after the storm that I finally learned that my father, my brother and his wife, and my sister and her family all survived the storm without serious injury. They have had food and water, thanks to my sister Ellen who is making trips down to the coast with essential supplies from her home in Baton Rouge, LA.

Just a couple of days ago electricity was restored to some of the houses in the area, including my fathers home in Ocean Springs. He had only a few inches of water in the ground floor of his one floor home.

My brother and my sister were not so lucky. My brother's home is in East Biloxi and is built on land that is normally higher than the flood plane. But Katrina's 30 foot storm surge brought 4 feet of water into the first floor of their home and left a one inch layer of mud and sewage on the bottom floor. They did not have flood insurance. The houses directly across the street from them are completely gone. My brother works out of his home and his office is very nearly a total loss. Fortunately, because my brother and his wife were staying with my father, one of the family cars was not flooded.

At the height of the storm, my sister Charlotte and her husband Christian had 4 and 1/2 feet of water in her single floor house, and they were forced to stand on their bed with their three dogs until the water level began to recede. According to Charlotte, when the waters were rising they could see snakes swimming in the flood waters outside the living room picture window. They have had a massive amount of destruction in their home. Financially, they had been living a day-to-day existence prior to the storm, so flood insurance has never been something that they could afford.

Because the appliances in her home were under water, her family has no way to store or to cook food and no means with which to acquire basic appliances like a refrigerator and a stove. All of the family cars were under water. Sheet rock in all of the rooms is crumbling. Her husband is currently out of work and since she is a real-estate agent it is likely to be a very long time before she has an income. This is of course a problem shared by people all over the region.

On Friday, September 16, there will be a benefit concert at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Marblehead Massachusetts. (Direction are included at the end of this email.) The price of admission is $15.00 per person. All of the proceeds from the show will be used to help my family rebuild their lives. While they have a very long and difficult road ahead of them, your attendance at this event will surely help them financially. It should also help to give them a new sense of hope and an awareness of our connection to families that are struggling on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Louisiana.

I hope you will consider this attending this event. I have struggled with the pros and cons of having such a narrow list of beneficiaries, particularly since it is my own family that is the focus of the evening. Earmarking the funds from this benefit for specific individuals and not the hundreds of thousands of others whose situations are in many cases far more desperate is something that I've struggled with. I am really just trying to help my family in this desperate time as best as I can.

Payment can be made by check made payable toŠ

Boehmer Hurricane Fund
122-A Green Street
Marblehead, MA 01945

The artists performing for this benefit all good friends of mine and they are among the finest songwriter and performers on the Boston Folk scene.

I am personally looking forward the wonderful night of music that awaits us.

I hope you can join us.

John Boehmer

PS: On the day following the concert, I will be flying down to Mississippi to at my own expense to assist with the massive cleanup that my family is facing.