To Haiti, With Love


So, this past week was tough. Witnessing via the internet and the television the devastation in Haiti was almost unbearable. How are these people making it? Yesterday, news reports abounded about how violence has broken out all over the island of Haiti as survivors, starving and injured, have begun to violently scuffle over the rations delivered by outside nations. The one airport the island has is only operational enough to accomodate one plane at a time and the island's pier is rubble. One news outlet reports that nations like the US are using military landing pads on ships to fly helicopters into Haiti to retrieve US natives who are trapped on the island, yet delivery of food and supplies to natives trapped in the inner parts of the island has been obstructed due to low fuel (or low priority?)

My heart breaks for Haiti.

On Thursday, one of my members on www.LiberatedMuse.com emailed me and asked me what, if anything was Liberated Muse doing to help with the Haiti relief being activated. I really appreciated her asking me this. In some way, it revitalized me immediately, helping me to realize that in some small way, I have the power to activate my fellow citizens on this end to do something, and, most importantly, they EXPECT me to be doing something.

I immediately made a call to Mary Shapiro, the woman who produces the Sounds of Hope benefit series at the Potter's House, a community-based establishment in the Adams Morgan part of DC. Mary Shapiro and the Potter's House have been two of the biggest supporters of Liberated Muse events in 2009, providing a venue that has been the home base of almost all of the events we had last year as fundraisers and platforms for our artists on www.LiberatedMuse.com.

I asked Mary if the Potter's House was doing anything for Haiti relief and she said "No", but there was a date, Feb. 12, that was free for me to book and produce an event for Haiti relief if I so desired.

And, that is how synchronicity works.

Here is the event. Exactly ten minutes after I hung up with Mary, I made the flyer below and put a call out to my network on Ning, Facebook and Twitter and within 20 minutes, over a dozen artists requested to be in the show. I am still making decisions regarding acts, but feel amazingly blessed. I hope you can make it if you are in the DC area. I will be posting up more details in the coming week. ALL Proceeds will be benefiting Wyclef Jean's nonprofit YeleHaiti. I am a strong supporter of Wyclef and his organization, (despite recent attempts by Smoking Gun to disparage the org because of its phenomenal success at rallying donations) and hope that a month from now, people's hearts are still in a place to give.


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