CHARLEMONT — The sounds of music will echo throughout Charlemont Federated Church on Saturday night.
The concert, “Bewitched,” will provide entertainment and raise money for the Good Neighbors Food Pantry, which is run out of the church’s basement. Donations of any amount are welcome.
For organizer and soprano Tinky Weisblat, music is another way to build community.
“To me, singing was something that you did naturally that was a way of expressing yourself and as a way of cementing community,” said Weisblat, who is also a food and literature columnist for the Greenfield Recorder.
Building community through music and supporting Good Neighbors are causes pianist Jerry Noble and vocalist Molly Scott share with Weisblat.
“When we sing together, we create (community) together,” Scott said. She added that the audience, whom she will invite to sing the chorus with her, is a part of that community. “It’s not just a performance separating them (the audience) from us. It’s an us.”
Noble loves when his love of music can benefit the world around him, stating, “I’m a huge fan of such things.”
The music program, which will begin at 6 p.m. after light appetizers (served at 5:15 p.m.), focuses on autumn and the emotions of a changing season. It is expected to run for an hour and a half, with duets and some sing-along portions, Weisblat said.
“We always like to tell a story with our programs,” Noble said, “even if it’s a loose story.”
Saturday’s program is “beautiful and positive on the surface, but there’s an undercurrent of (melancholy),” Noble said. “Sort of Mozart-y and sadness.”
Scott added that a song she wrote and will perform, “It’s Never Too Late or Too Soon,” mirrors the theme of Saturday’s program and of where she is in her life.
“It’s about cycles. It’s about the metaphor of how things are constantly blooming and dying,” she said.
Beyond Saturday’s concert, the church and the pantry are linked, with the pantry becoming one of the church’s missions, said Sheila Litchfield, a 30-year volunteer with the pantry.
“(The church has) always housed our food in their basement (and) we are officially a nonprofit through the church,” Litchfield said.
The concert, “was prompted by a couple of things, one of which is that I just love to sing,” Weisblat said with a laugh. “And the other thing is that this is such an important time of year for Good Neighbors.”
Litchfield explained that at the holidays, parents can pick out a gift per each child under 18 years old.
“We spend about $2,000 on holiday gifts at Christmastime,” Litchfield said.
The donations from the concert will go to support the holiday and other needs of Good Neighbors. Annually, the pantry spends approximately $17,000 on food and an additional $3,000 between holiday gifts and utilities, Litchfield said, adding that most of that money comes from grants.
Good Neighbors has been a member of the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts for more than 15 years, Litchfield said. On the third Tuesday of every month, approximately 70 families — or about 300 people — take shopping carts and pick out four or five grocery bags full of food from the pantry. The pantry serves a wide range of towns, in the western part of Franklin County and beyond.
Reach Maureen O’Reilly at moreilly@recorder.com or at 413-772-0271, ext. 280.
