Music with a purpose.
In April 2007, indie/acoustic/Latin musician Whitney Whyte visited our church to share her music and her story. I was moved – both by her music and her story – and I immediately purchased a copy of her CD to do what I could to help. I also encouraged her to try out for American Idol, but I don’t think that’s her style. What is her style is helping people in Nicaragua escape from a life of extreme poverty. She has been involved with the Love Light & Melody project, which is bringing hope to the people who inhabit a trash dump in Nicaragua.
I challenge you to listen to Whitney Whyte’s song “Mas Ques Especial” and not love it.
And I challenge you to visit the Love Light & Melody website and not be moved by their story:
La Chureca is a slang term for the city trash dump in Managua, Nicaragua, referring to a community of people who live and work there, ‘sifting’ or ‘filtering’ through the garbage daily… Real people, with brilliant smiles and vibrant souls, living amidst piles of burning trash, and next to polluted lakes—always looking for things of value to buy, sell, and trade—while under a constant pressure to survive.
The mission of Love, Light & Melody in La Chureca is simple: to become expert on life in the dump, to acknowledge and affirm the people who live there, to find and develop new jobs away from the trash, and to see La Chureca closed and a new, sustainable, and secure land-fill developed elsewhere. LL&M will stand with this community of people to help them transition into a new life and means of supporting themselves when that beautiful day comes.
Thanksgiving in American is only abut three weeks away. It’s really easy to lose track of the big picture and not realize how much we have to be thankful for.
Do me a favor. Buy Whitney White’s music and help support the the Love Light & Melody project. Her MySpace page had about 4700 listens when I wrote this. We can do better. We can do more. We can help.
