When Hope and Lewis Rowsell returned home last February from a Canadian Foodgrains Bank food study tour to Ethiopia, they knew they wanted to do something to help people in that country.

“When we came home, we were so inspired,” says Hope. “We wanted to do something to help.”

But what? The South Brook, Newfoundland couple decided the best way to raise funds was by holding a Gospel music concert at their church.

On October 1, last year, an overflow audience of over 150 people filled the South Brook United Church to hear local performers, donating $2,215 to the Foodgrains Bank for people suffering from drought in East Africa.

“Our goal was $500,” says Hope. “I was overwhelmed by the response.”

The evening went so well that they want to make it an annual event, she adds.

“The goodness of people never ceases to amaze me,” she says, adding that the turnout and the donations “touched my heart.”

Of her trip to Ethiopia, she says that “it changed my perspective on the world . . . the time we spent in Ethiopia, and the experiences we shared, are etched in our minds forever.”

Performers at the Gospel Music concert were: Seeds of Hope, Crissine Downey, Eugene Fudge, Lod Anthony, Lewis Noble, Hazel Dawe, Yvonne Colbourne, Jeanette Weir, Verna and Gary Adams, Mark Locke, Sharon Snow, Ron Roberts, Wilfred Dicks, Randy Colbourne, and Marlene Burton.

Image: South Brook, Newfoundland.