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Reaching out

Keegan Ales hosts concert by Mimi Ferocious & the Trapps this Sunday to benefit Haitian Amputee Mothers’ Alliance

by Lynn Woods
June 09, 2011 12:37 PM | 0 0 comments | 13 13 recommendations | email to a friend | print
Sean Schenker of the Trapps
Sean Schenker of the Trapps
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It’s not just well-crafted suds that have been drawing fans to Keegan Ales; the microbrewery, located in a hundred-year-old industrial brick building in Uptown Kingston, has also attracted notice for its musical acts: its superb Sunday-night jazz performances as well as the folk, country, rock and R & B bands that play other nights of the week. The concert on June 12, featuring two highly regarded acts, Mimi Ferocious, who’s performing for the first time in five years, and the Trapps, who have earned a huge following in the region, will be yet another feather in Keegan Ales’ cap – or two feathers, considering that all proceeds will support a very worthy cause: free medical services for Haitian women who lost one or more limbs in last year’s devastating earthquake.

Liz Pickett, who works as a health educator at Maternal Infant Services Network, a not-for-profit organization funded by the New York State Department of Health and serving Ulster, Sullivan and Orange Counties, is also a student at Philadelphia University Midwifery Institute. The distance-learning initiative enables her to do much of the classwork for her Master’s degree from her home in New Paltz, but now she gets to travel with one of her classes on a special humanitarian mission: Pickett is one of three students who will be traveling with three faculty members to Haiti for a week in July to offer free primary and gynecological care at a clinic run by the Haitian Amputee Mothers’ Alliance. Located in Lamardelle, four hours’ drive from Port au Prince, the clinic offers full-service health care, including the fitting of a prosthesis.

While the school is supplying free board and two meals a day, Pickett and her colleagues are footing the cost of travel themselves. In addition, each volunteer is allowed to bring a 50-pound bag of medical supplies, such as syringes, specula and hospital scrubs. Pickett said that she is spending an estimated $1,200 on airfare and immunizations. She conceived the idea of the concert as a way to help pay for her travel expenses as well as the medical supplies, and said that she hopes to raise $1,000.

The suggested donation is $5, although more generous amounts are certainly welcome; local artists will also be raffling off their work in support of the cause. Pickett noted that Ferocious, who is coming out of her semi-retirement especially for this show, will be selling her CDs at Keegan’s and will donate all the proceeds to Pickett’s Haitian venture. She said that one factor that played into the Trapps’ agreeing to perform was that the lead singer had a unique connection: His late father had traveled to Haiti for mission work a few years back. The concert starts at 7 p.m. Keegan’s is located 20 St. James Street.

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