Donation | Item Donated $20 cowbell/percussion $75 acoustic guitar $100 violin $150 electric guitar $200 electric bass Join Hungry for Music and Sister Cities in supporting Morazan, E cowbell/percussion $20.00 acoustic guitar $75.00 violin $100.00 electric guitar $150.00 electric bass $200.00

Hungry for Music and Montgomery County Sister Cities have joined to provide musical instruments for the youth of Morazan, El Salvador – the first sister city in a county program that hopes to expand to cities throughout the world. With the help of Hungry for Music, a Takoma Park-based charity that donates musical instruments to underserved children, the mission is to raise $2,500 to purchase instruments through a vendor in El Salvador and support a city youth development program and boost the local economy. The fundraising drive, which began July 1, will run through July 25.

“Montgomery County’s Sister Cities program will help to enrich our community by building relationships around the world to promote cultural, educational and economic development opportunities,” County Executive Ike Leggett said.

During a 2010 trip to Morazan, a Montgomery County Sister Cities delegation toured a newly built House of Culture community center in Perquin. The city’s mayor asked the delegation for musical instruments to create an out-of-school music program. The delegation later decided this request was one they would fulfill first. Delegation member Bruce Adams, director of the county’s Office of Community Partnerships and founder of the Bethesda Big Train baseball team, had worked with Hungry for Music founder and director Jeff Campbell and turned to him that charity, which has donated more than 5,000 instruments to youth across the United States and abroad. In this case, the instruments will be purchased in El Salvador, working with businesses there to supply and transport them.

You can support the campaign by buying a raffle ticket for a First Act electric guitar (valued at $2,000) at Bethesda Big Train games or Strathmore Summer Concert Series shows. Donations also can be made online at www.hungryformusic.org.

Here’s is what a typical donation could buy for Perquin’s House of Culture: $20, cowbell/percussion; $75, acoustic guitar; $100, violin; $150, electric guitar, $200 electric bass, $200.

During the last week in July, Leggett, former U.S. Rep. Connie Morella, Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez and County Council member George Leventhal are leading a 65-person delegation to return to Morazan, a rural department (the equivalent of a state) in eastern El Salvador, formalize the Sister City relationship.(Is this correct?? A check for musical instruments will be presented at that time.

The independent, nonprofit Montgomery County Sister Cities Inc., chaired by former Town of Chevy Chase mayor Bill Hudnut, was established to connect the county to the world by encouraging and fostering friendship, partnership and mutual cooperation through educational, cultural, social, economic, humanitarian and charitable exchanges. The organization’s objectives include encouraging the people of Montgomery County and those of similar communities in other nations to acquire information about each other and to understand one another as individuals, as members of their community, as citizens of their country, and as part of the family of nations. It also hopes to foster a continuing relationship of mutual concern between Montgomery County residents and the people of similar communities in other nations. The Sister Cities group also plans to participate as an organization in the fostering and publicizing of local, state and national programs of international cooperation.

Tickets are $15 advance, $20 at door Who? Lucky Dub & Elikeh What? World Dance Party! Why? benefit Hungry for Music When? Friday, June 24, 2011, 9 pm til midnight Where? Torpedo Factory, Old Town Alexandria, VA How Much? $15 advance, $20 door World Dance Party Advance Tickets $15.00 www.elikeh.com www.luckydub.com

The Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Va., and Hungry for Music team up to help young musicians in need with a rocking reggae/Afro-pop World Music Dance Party. The show features two of the Washington area’s favorite festival bands, Elikeh and Lucky Dub, making rare appearances in Alexandria. There will be a cash bar, along with light snacks.

Led by the Togo-born Serge “Massama” Dogo, Elikeh performs its own brand of Afro-pop and -funk. Dogo covers lead vocals and guitar, and his accompanists play guitar, bass, drums, two saxes, trumpet and percussion. The style is a combination of the 70′s Afro-funk and traditional African rhythms. Last year, Elikeh earned Wammies’ World Music nominations for top duo/group, vocalist (Dogo), recording (“Adje! Adje!”) and instrumentalist (Megan Nortrup, on saxophone).

Lucky Dub plays the feel-good and danceable music that stems from reggae, blending in elements of funk, pop, jazz, and world music. Their result is a little like Sublime, but their fresh sound comes from the melting-pot blend of musicians from California, D.C., the Caribbean, West Africa and Russia. The band’s nine core members, led by Gordon Daniels on vocals, guitar and melodica and John Baker on bass, include players on drums, congas, saxophone, trumpet, trombone and keyboards. Since forming in 2008, Lucky Dub has earned Wammies recognition in reggae, and three songs off their debut album “Mindset,” released in April, have won Mid-Atlantic Song Competition and WAMA songwriting awards.