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Man robbed at Tallmadge Avenue eatery
Four teens restrain man, take items from his Akron home
Another winter punch heading toward Ohio
Complaints against officer keep coming
Police: Ohio girl dies after fall into snow bank
Cuyahoga Falls residents come home to find burning couch on balcony
Blogs:
First Bell - On Education:
No City of Akron basketball tonight
Pets:
Pet telethon re-airs
The Heldenfiles:
Chipmunks "Squeakquel" on DVD/BD March 30
Akron Zips:
Late surge gives Zips ugly road win
Tribe Matters:
Blogmail response on Hafner
Cleveland Browns:
Stallworth's contract terminated
Balanced Ledger:
QB in Browns future: another mock draft
Kent State Sports:
KSU Notes – February 9
Cleveland Cavaliers:
NBA Power Rankings from Around the Internet
Buckeye Blogging:
Buckeyes grab 18 players on signing day
Varsity Letters:
Garfield at Buchtel basketball
All Da King's Men:
Palin At The Tea Party Convention
Blog of Mass Destruction:
Republican Pre-Conditions
Akron Law Café:
Citizens United v. F.E.C. (Part 4): Kennedy's and O'Connor's Basic Approaches to Constitutional Decisionmaking – Top Down and Bottom Up
Car Chase:
Collector Car Hobby Loses One of the Best—Jim Roll
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Decisions Decisions: Credit Cards or Your Mortgage?
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Loucile is looking for a Lake Erie getaway in June for three kids, ages 1, 3, and 5.
Sound Check:
Talk of the Town – Top entertainment picks for the weekend
HRLite House:
Track HR Research
Akron Gamer:
Makers of 'Castle Crashers' unveil 'BattleBlock Theater'
See Jane Style:
Do IT this week: Layering
By Rich Heldenfels
Beacon Journal staff writer
POSTED: 08:26 p.m. EDT, Jul 04, 2009
KENT: July Fourth is thought of as a uniquely American holiday, a celebration of the nation's independence.
But America is also a melting pot, and, as it says on the Statue of Liberty, a place of ''world-wide welcome.''
At Kent's annual Heritage Festival on Saturday, the fare included internationally inflected items like kielbasa and pizza. And while you could hear blues and hip-hop in some corners of the downtown event, from one of the stages came haunting tunes in the Luganda language, performed by a choir far from its home.
The Matsiko Children's Choir includes 25 young people from Uganda, all of them either orphans or from families ''in a very poor state,'' choir director Sam Straxy said. (Luganda is one of the Ugandan languages.)
The choir sprang from work between the Gospel Messengers, a Uganda-based organization, and the International Children's Network of Covington, Wash. ICN works through churches, other nongovernment organizations and individuals around the world to help children get an education up through college so they can break out of poverty.
Straxy was working with children in the Gospel Messengers' schools when he suggested that they form a choir.
According to ICN President Don Windham, the choir provides a way to promote awareness of the needs of the children in Uganda by making tours of the United States.
Each tour lasts about a year. The first one, in 2008, concentrated on the western United States, Straxy said. The current tour had an extended stay in Chicago before coming to Northeast Ohio; later stops will include a return visit to Chicago, as well as Minnesota and Idaho, Windham said.
Performances include singing and dancing, taught by Straxy, who is also responsible, he said, for ''moral discipline.''
Events are set up in conjunction with local groups. Our Father's House Family Church and its Rock Cafe, both on South Water Street in Kent, worked on the local appearance.
Pastor Paul Myers said church families provided places for the performers to stay.
Myers had heard about the choir through a friend in California.
But the choir itself is not a specifically religious group, Straxy said. Some of the students are Muslim; others, Catholic; still others from traditional African faiths.
And the songs are mainly about two things, he said: hope and love.
Hope is a big topic, he said, so people will not wallow in self-pity. And love, Straxy said, ''is one language that has no boundaries.''
Just as, on Saturday, there were no boundaries to the celebration of Independence Day.
KENT: July Fourth is thought of as a uniquely American holiday, a celebration of the nation's independence.
But America is also a melting pot, and, as it says on the Statue of Liberty, a place of ''world-wide welcome.''
At Kent's annual Heritage Festival on Saturday, the fare included internationally inflected items like kielbasa and pizza. And while you could hear blues and hip-hop in some corners of the downtown event, from one of the stages came haunting tunes in the Luganda language, performed by a choir far from its home.
The Matsiko Children's Choir includes 25 young people from Uganda, all of them either orphans or from families ''in a very poor state,'' choir director Sam Straxy said. (Luganda is one of the Ugandan languages.)
The choir sprang from work between the Gospel Messengers, a Uganda-based organization, and the International Children's Network of Covington, Wash. ICN works through churches, other nongovernment organizations and individuals around the world to help children get an education up through college so they can break out of poverty.
Straxy was working with children in the Gospel Messengers' schools when he suggested that they form a choir.
According to ICN President Don Windham, the choir provides a way to promote awareness of the needs of the children in Uganda by making tours of the United States.
Each tour lasts about a year. The first one, in 2008, concentrated on the western United States, Straxy said. The current tour had an extended stay in Chicago before coming to Northeast Ohio; later stops will include a return visit to Chicago, as well as Minnesota and Idaho, Windham said.
Performances include singing and dancing, taught by Straxy, who is also responsible, he said, for ''moral discipline.''
Events are set up in conjunction with local groups. Our Father's House Family Church and its Rock Cafe, both on South Water Street in Kent, worked on the local appearance.
Pastor Paul Myers said church families provided places for the performers to stay.
Myers had heard about the choir through a friend in California.
But the choir itself is not a specifically religious group, Straxy said. Some of the students are Muslim; others, Catholic; still others from traditional African faiths.
And the songs are mainly about two things, he said: hope and love.
Hope is a big topic, he said, so people will not wallow in self-pity. And love, Straxy said, ''is one language that has no boundaries.''
Just as, on Saturday, there were no boundaries to the celebration of Independence Day.
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