by Kristen Coppock
EVESHAM – A charity concert aims to give ill children a reason to be thankful.
Proceeds from the second annual thanksGIVING Festival will benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital and Toys for Tots. Organizers also are asking attendees to donate playthings. Meanwhile, four bands will play for the crowd at Champps Americana in Evesham from 7 p.m. Wednesday to 2 a.m. Thursday.
The event is being sponsored by Davis Concert Staging, a nonprofit organization that uses music as a vehicle for community service and charitable fundraising.
“This is the time to be thankful for what we have and is our way of giving back,” said Ben Davis, DCS co-founder and a Mount Laurel resident.
The thanksGIVING Festival was first produced last year at the restaurant on Route 73, drawing about 850 people and raising more than $7,000.
“We are determined to beat last year’s numbers this year,” said Davis, 24, an information technologies systems engineer by day. “Our thanksGIVING Festival is a worthwhile event, a fun night with lots of great music and wonderful volunteers.”
The show’s lineup includes Desoto Jones from Mount Laurel. Other bands scheduled to perform are the Common Ground Band of Cherry Hill, Once Okay Twice from Washington, and Baltimore’s Can’t Hang.
Admission is $10 in advance or at the door, along with the donation of a new, unwrapped gift that will go to Toys for Tots. Those who do not have an advance ticket or a toy donation will pay $15 to get into the show. Tickets may be purchased at www.ticketweb.com.
Davis founded DCS with his brother, Jake, 22. The Evesham natives said the organization is simply a way for them to perform community service while doing something they love.
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Jake Davis, a business student at Drexel University in Philadelphia, said in an earlier interview that he enjoys finding bands and putting them onstage, and believes that people with the means to do so should be charitable.
“It’s more of a responsibility, not just a good thing to do,” he said.
The brothers’ mission is to promote all genres of music, as well as performance and education, through live shows. They also aim to make donations in support of musical education and other charities, and help bands get recognized by record labels. The brothers said they pride themselves on being local promoters and try to put on great shows.
DCS has produced or assisted with seven charitable events this year, including the summer’s ReggaeFest at Champps and the spring’s third annual Jeff Burd Meningitis Walk at Freedom Park in Medford. It already has raised an estimated $38,000 in 2009 for six charities and has hosted at least 13,000 patrons. The year’s earlier concerts booked 17 bands.
With the thanksGIVING Festival, two more charities will be supported and two additional bands will be added to the roster.
DCS also has seen growth on its Web site, with traffic increasing 438 percent from the first to the second quarter of the year. Ben Davis said Davis Concert Staging is hoping to continue to cultivate a following through social networking sites, including MySpace and Facebook, where the organization has a fan page.
“2010 looks promising, with a handful of shows already scheduled through the spring,” he said in an e-mail.