On a steamy night in Kingston, Jamaica, the heat is still rising off the pavement in air so thick one has to almost push against it. Traveling along the narrow streets of Seaview Gardens at this time can be a somewhat risky business. Slicing through the thick Jamaican night and battling against the answering chorus of blaring radios, raised voices, crying children, car horns and gunshots is the joyful noise of beating drums and shouting brass reverberating through the air. Accompanying the instruments are counter beats of clapping hands and stamping feet. Turning the corner as the music gets even louder, the source appears, the St. Patrick's Foundation Allstars.
The band is practicing and the crowd of youth, anywhere from ages 8 to 27 are playing and dancing with a wild energy. A host of dancers in front of the band practice their routine.
Soon they will be bringing their music and energy to Vienna where they will be playing during the intermissions and after the show at the St. Mark's Theater Ministry Summer Musical, "Into the Woods." The band is getting a chance to meet the people that have helped to raise funds and sent groups of college students to volunteer with the St. Patrick's Foundation since 1995.
St. Mark's connected with St. Patrick's, an organization which works to battle the extreme poverty found in Kingston, when in 1995 Rob Tessier, former St. Mark's youth minister, had begun talking to the late pastor Father Culkin about starting a mission trip for college students while at the same time discussing starting a theater ministry. Culkin had known the foundation's founder, Monsignor Albert and through him connected Tessier to St. Patrick's and the first group went down to Kingston. His experience in Jamaica influenced the theme for that first production, "Godspell", and when the question of what to do with the proceeds came up, St. Patrick's was the answer. That first show provided $5,000 for the foundation and has continued to contribute at least a few thousand every year.
TWELVE YEARS LATER the Allstars, a leadership program through St. Patrick's that helps get youth off the streets and away from the drugs, violence, and poverty that many of them face as a part of their daily lives, are coming to Vienna. Some of the band members are also members of Youth Crime Watch (YCW), an organization that helps youth tackle the threat of drugs and violence on their own streets and had already been raising money to attend a YCW international conference in Utah this spring. When the trip was scrapped because of lack of funds for airfare Fabian Brown, director of development and former executive director of St. Patrick's, came up with another plan. They would go and visit Kathy Sullivan instead.
Sullivan, producer of "Into the Woods" and an active member of St. Mark's, has been involved with St. Patrick's for many years both through the summer musicals and by taking groups of college students down to volunteer. She stresses the importance for the band "to be able to understand where the kids come from, how hard we work to get the money we give to them." She believes it will be beneficial for the parish as well. "This church has never seen anything but the pictures we bring back and the stories we tell" she said, noting the importance of really seeing where the money goes and who receives it. One of the goals of the band while they are in Vienna is to fund-raise for the program and spread awareness of what they do in Kingston.
Nicole Freeman, co-producer of "Into the Woods" and former St. Mark's youth minister, agrees saying that it "has to make a big impact on their hearts." Freeman also hopes that this can spread awareness of St. Patrick's and its cause beyond St. Mark's and to the greater community, a goal of the theater ministry for years.
A DRIVING FORCE in making it all happen is Abby Oremland, a longtime St. Mark's Youth Program participant and a senior at Virginia Commonwealth University, who during her three trips to Kingston has become very passionate about St. Patrick's and the plight of the poor in Kingston.
When Brown decided that he would take the group to Vienna it was up to Oremland to work out the details. "Abby has been fantastic about doing all the legwork," Freeman said, praising her efforts in scheduling, housing, publicity and even fund-raising. Oremland gives her parents the credit for being her main support throughout the entire process. Anxiously awaiting the group Oremland says "I can't wait till they come. It's all I talk about, all I think about."