BY CHRIS GAETANO
Staff Writer
SOUTH BRUNSWICK – Local high schoolers and their supporters hope to draw 1,000 people to a concert benefiting the victims of the conflict in Darfur.
Almost a full year in the making, final preparations are now under way for the June 9 event – Woodlot ’07. The concert will feature the bands Fire It Up, Almost Green, Anchor for Arms, and Wellsville, all acts from South Brunswick’s local music scene. The event will also host several speakers who will talk about the conflict in Darfur, including the founders of the organization Help Darfur Now, the concert’s beneficiaries.
The festival’s organizers, the South Brunswick High School chapter of Help Darfur Now and the South Brunswick Human Relations Commission, are only selling tickets in advance due to logistical reasons.
As volunteers for the event scramble to sell as many tickets and T-shirts as possible, it may be hard to believe that at the beginning of the school year, the concert was nothing more than an idea. Students organized rapidly in response to reports of atrocities in Darfur.
“The idea, basically, was that we saw there was something going on in Darfur that needed to be changed. And being teenagers, we didn’t want to do some typical charity event, we wanted to do something different and appeal to kids our own age. So, we decided to do a rock concert,” said Steve Marcou, a high school student and one of the event’s organizers.
For some number of months, the concert was a show without a venue. When it was decided that Woodlot Park was probably the best place to hold the event, the high school, while expressing great support for its goals, said it would not be able to be a sponsor, because it would not be on school grounds. This led students to seek out the South Brunswick Human Relations Commission, which in turn approached the Township Council in early February for logistical support. The township government expressed its enthusiasm for the idea and agreed to help.
Since that time, organizers were engaged in a massive fundraising campaign fueled primarily by letter writing to family and friends. As of press time, the group has raised more than $9,000, well past its initial goal of $5,000. While the show is less than a month away, the group does not plan to cease its efforts anytime soon.
“We are extremely excited about how well we have done with our family and friends campaign. Over $9,000 was raised and I’m sure we’re going to reach our goal of $10,000. The original goal was $5,000 and the money still keeps coming in,” said Cindy Gittleman, the event’s parent adviser and the mother of event chair Aaron Gittleman.
The crisis in Darfur is, at its most basic level, a conflict between the Sudanese government, with the support of armed militias, and various rebel groups, of which the Sudanese Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement are the two largest. The rebels’ stated aim was to address political marginalization at the hands of the government. In response, the government of Sudan began systematically and brutally targeting the civilian populations that give the rebels aid and support.
This has resulted in anywhere between 200,000 and 400,000 deaths at the hands of the Sudanese government and more than 2 million people being displaced, their villages burned to the ground. Millions now live in refugee camps, some of which spill over into neighboring Chad. Despite a 2006 peace agreement, the violence continues to escalate, with the various rebel groups now fighting each other as well as the government targeting civilians. While a contingent of African Union peacekeepers have been present in Sudan since 2004, the government has stated that it will treat larger international forces as hostile invaders.
Tickets for the concert can be purchased on the event’s Web site, www.woodlot07.org, for $7. They will also be on sale at various businesses in the area, such as Pierre’s, located on Georges Road, and Confectionally Yours, Route 27.