Written by Steven Chandler
If your wallet is looking empty and starting to look like it may be standing in the way of you and your summer plans, you may not be alone. In an effort to raise money for their summer trip to South America, the Harding Chorus will be conducting Sweets and Serenades, a fundraising event in the McInteer rotunda Monday, April 26.
Starting at 8 p.m. on April 26 everyone is invited to come to the McInteer Rotunda to enjoy desserts that members of the chorus have made as well as listen to them sing. This gives people an opportunity to donate to those having a hard time raising money for the chorus trip this summer. In addition to Sweets and Serenades, there have been a few work days that have allowed students that still need money for their trip ways to raise it through various activities such as mowing lawns.
The $2,900-per-person fee makes this the most expensive trip the chorus has ever taken. According to Cliff Ganus, Harding Chorus director, there are a few reasons for this: most countries have entrance fees, the dollar is weak, there is inflation and they have to fly a lot. It is not easy to travel by bus where the chorus is going, so they have to fly a considerable distance. However, they will take buses when they can, including one bus drive that will be around 22 hours.
Global Outreach has been helping to manage all the money that students have raised through various means, such as writing letters asking for financial assistance from their home congregations, family or friends. Ganus said that according to Ken Graves in Global Outreach, this has been the hardest year for fundraising.
This year the chorus will be touring in South America. They will spend a week in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, a week in Buenos Aires, Argentina, two days in Vinã del Mar, Chile, where Harding’s Latin America campus is located, and five days in Santiago, Chile.
“We thought it would be good to go to Buenos Aires to work with the church there (this was because of a connection there with a HU student’s grandparents),” Ganus said. “We thought it would be good to sing in Vinã del Mar where the HULA program is … Also, because there is such an interest in Latin missions here … this seemed to be a good time to pursue that. We had a number of good contacts, and they were eager to work with.”
In all the locations minus Vinã del Mar, the primary contact is a church. The chorus is going to do various things to aid the church. They will sing on the street, pass out fliers, sing in concert halls and so on to help the church reach people.
“Singing attracts people; it opens them up to hearing about the local work that is going on,” Ganus said. “It simply broadens the visibility and promotes the activity of the local churches,” Ganus said. “As evidence of that, I would say that the great majority of places that we go invite us to come back because it’s an effective outreach.”
Student Tiffany Jones understands the power and impact that music and this trip can have in reaching people.
“We are entering people’s lives through music and getting the message out that way,” junior chorus member Tiffany Jones said. “It will be different than China (where the chorus went in the summer of 2008) because we can openly share our faith. In China we went to churches, but a lot of that was on the down low.”
Even with recent torrential rainfall, landslides and floods in Rio de Janeiro and the earthquakes off the coast of Chile earlier this year, only one performance had to be canceled due to earthquake repairs on a building in Vinã del Mar. The group of 37 leaves May 11 and will return June 3.
