“Songs for the Earth” – October 12, 2007 Free benefit concert for NMU EarthKeeper Student Team

“Songs for the Earth” – A free benefit concert for the Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper Student Team

Public invited to free NMU EarthKeeper Student Team benefit concert Oct. 12 in Marquette

(Marquette, Michigan) – The public is invited to a free concert to benefit the Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper (NMU EK) Student Team on Friday, October 12, 2007 from 7-10 p.m. at the Upfront and Company restaurant in Marquette.

The concert – entitled “Songs for the Earth” – features a wide variety of music by Greg LaCombe of Munising and his band Loose Ends.

The audience has a great time in Oct. 2006 as Greg LaCombe and the Loose Ends Band from Munising, Michigan performed at last year’s student benefit concert. 

Proceeds go to the Earth Keeper Initiative student arm at Northern Michigan University to continue efforts protecting Upper Peninsula lakes and streams. The NMU EK Student Team was formed in April 2006. The student team has its own environment projects and they volunteer at collection sites across a 400-mile area of the U.P. during the annual Earth Keeper Clean Sweep.

The concert is free, but donations are welcome.

Public enjoyed themselves dancing and laughing during the 2006 NMU Student Team benefit concert 

The concert is sponsored by the Turtle Island Project and the Eden on the Bay Lutheran Church in Munising in partnership with the Earth Keeper’s nine faith communities with 140 participating churches/temples – Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist, Bahá‘í, Jewish, and Zen Buddhist.

Rev. Jon Magnuson, who dreamed of creating the Earth Keepers ten years ago, said its important to support today’s youth who are trying to protect the planet.

“The university EarthKeeper student chapter is an investment in raising up new leaders who will inherit a world that is facing an environmental crisis none of us could have every imagined,” Magnuson said. “We need to lift them up – support them and hear their prophetic voice.”

Concert sponsor Rev. Lynn Hubbard with NMU EK students at 2006 benefit concert at UpFront & Company in Marquette, MI 

NMU EK Student Team Project Director Jennifer Simula said the group “continues to grow and stretch in different directions.”

“We’ve already participated in Van Riper State Park’s Harvest Festival where two of our student leaders conducted a children’s environmental workshop,” Simula said.

The NMU EarthKeeper Student Team participated in “a beach cleanup in Marquette sponsored by the Nature Conservancy; and coming up this week, we’re helping out with workshops at a Conservation Festival,” Simula said.

“We have several new faces this year, and our energy is high,” Simula said.

Greg LaCombe of Munising, MI and his Loose Ends band performs at 2006 benefit for students 

The Earth Keepers and the NMU EK Student Team have received grants from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

However, those grants have ended, and the students now need public support more than ever.

The creation of the NMU EK Student Team was announced in April 2006 in a press conference attended by the leaders of nine northern Michigan faith communities and the COE/President of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community 

The students are attempting to set up chapters at three other Upper Peninsula universities.

For the second year in a row, the interfaith Earth Keepers were recently named one of the 13 hardest working faith-based non-profit groups in America by World Magazine after receiving the Acton Institute Samaritan Award.

The Earth Keepers recently received the annual “Achievement Award” from Lake Superior Magazine. In 2006, the Earth Keepers received the annual “Environmental Stewardship” award from the Lake Superior Binational Forum.

On July 15, 2007, the Earth Keepers held a free benefit concert for the Lake Superior Defense Fund that featured the debut of the Boreal Chamber Symphony with classical musicians from around the Midwest conducted by Craig Randal Johnson of Minneapolis.

On June 13, 2007, about 100 people attended the Earth Keeper Energy Summit in Marquette. The summit inspired about 500 U.P. businesses, churches/temples, and homeowners to reduce their power consumption thus reducing utility bills and helping the environment, and many signed up for an energy audit to find additional conservation measures.

Over the past three years, the Earth Keepers have collected over 370 tons of hazardous waste turned in by about 15,000 U.P. residents at about two dozen churches during annual Earth Day clean sweeps across northern Michigan.

Over one ton of pharmaceuticals and $500,000 in narcotics were turned in by the public during the third annual Earth Keeper Clean Sweep in April 2007.

In 2006, over 320 tons of old and broken electronics like computers and cell phones was collected and recycled.

In 2005, over 45 tons of household poisons was collected and properly disposed.

For more information call Rev. Magnuson at 906-228-5494 or Greg at 906-475-5068.

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