[307] Students Unite In Artistic Expression To Help Haitian People

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Feb. 12, 2010
EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081

STUDENTS UNITE IN ARTISTIC EXPRESSION TO HELP HAITIAN PEOPLE
“Restoration Haiti” Concert Provides Creative Release for Humanitarian Cause

(MURFREESBORO) – “Restoration Haiti,” an informational benefit concert planned and performed by MTSU students to help the victims of the Jan. 12 earthquake, will be held at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 27, at MTSU’s Wright Music Hall. Admission is $10 for non-students and $5 for students with all proceeds going to the American Red Cross.
In addition, MTSU student Ertha Luma, a Haitian native, will share photographs and stories of catastrophic conditions in the Caribbean nation. As of Feb. 11, the official death toll stands at 230,000. Some one million Haitians have been rendered homeless by the quake. Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive estimates it will take 10 years to rebuild his country.
The concert is the brainchild of MTSU junior Jasmine Pratt, a 20-year-old English major from Atlanta, Ga, who not only is organizing the event, but is among the scheduled performers. She says the Jan. 22 “Hope for Haiti” telethon spearheaded by actor George Clooney and Haitian musician Wyclef Jean was an inspiration.
“This benefit is to help us release our own thoughts through spoken word, to express our emotions through song, and to release our tension through dance for the sake of (the Haitian) people,” says Pratt. “We are our brother’s keeper, and we will once again see them rise even better than before. But it starts here, and it starts now.”
The entertainers, whose work encompasses a wide variety of genres, include Jasmine White, Asia Muhammad, Christina Bell, Brittany Bowers, Justin Hart, Skyler Harris, Britanie’ Bell Courtney Olsen, Sharonnda Latimore, MTSU’s Gospel Choir (Generation of Praise), Jasmine Neblett, Lesley Scullark and Wayne Gillard, Donya Dyson, Deangelo Sheadrick and the TAFC Band. Volunteer helpers include Alpha Kappa Psi and the MTSU offices of Leadership and Service and Intercultural and Diversity Affairs.
“When students get together with a common thought, a common mind and a common heart to really do something, we can all get together and make a change,” says Pratt.
For more information, contact Leadership and Service at 615-898-5812 or Pratt at princess.jasmine213@gmail.com.

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With three Nobel Prize winners among its alumni and former faculty, Middle Tennessee State University confers master’s degrees in 10 areas, the Specialist in Education degree, the Doctor of Arts degree and the Doctor of Philosophy degree. MTSU is ranked among the top 100 public universities in the nation in the Forbes “America’s Best Colleges” 2009 survey.