A benefit concert for Loaves and Fishes will be held on Saturday, November 16, at 6:30 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church, 504 S. Westnedge Ave. in Kalamazoo. Admission is a free will donation of non-perishable food items such as canned meat, tuna, and fruit according to June Kucks, a Vicksburg musician who will be playing in the concert. Cash donations are always welcome, she says.
Area musicians performing include: Sentimental Journey, Crescendo Fiddlers, New Town Criers, Bell Book and Canto, Chuck and Cathy Rysenga, and Franklin Meade and Webster. Also, the First Sunday Jammers will perform traditional and contemporary folk music with a kick of Bluegrass. Kucks and her husband, Wayne, are members of this group that often performs at the Scotts Community Center. Many of these groups volunteered their musicianship all summer in Vicksburg at the Farmers’ Market on Friday each week.
K’zoo Folklife Organization began the annual concerts in 1997, collecting more than 10,000 pounds of food items, and thousands of dollars to help Kalamazoo County families supplement their limited food resources. Kalamazoo Loaves and Fishes is the largest charitable food distribution organization in southwest Michigan. They have a distribution outlet at the Vicksburg United Methodist Church every last Saturday of the month.
K’zoo Folklife Organization continues to be an active participant in the Vicksburg community, having presented music festivals in the Vicksburg Historic Village, hosting events for the Summer Concerts in the Park series, and now providing music for the Vicksburg Farmers Market all this summer.
Chuck and Cathy Rysenga , who will perform at the benefit concert, are a very popular duo on the Vicksburg Farmers Market music schedule. Chuck Rysenga is the K’zoo Folklife Organization music coordinator for several farmers markets in the area.
For information check Facebook at K’zoo Folklife Organization; or June Kucks at 269-649-4529; or Chuck Rysenga at 269-353-8777.