A concert benefiting tornado recovery efforts in Marshall County is set for this weekend.
The Marshall County Disaster Recovery Celebration — Benefit Concert will be held at Bob’s Music Shed in Gilbertsville. The money from the event will go to the Marshall Co. Nonprofit Foundation’s Tornado Relief Fund, which will be available to area residents in the Moors Camp Highway Loop, where much of the storm damage is. People living in the impacted area will be able to apply for funds until the end of August.
Ann Burnworth is the co-chair of the event. She said she started planning days after the tornado.
“When you see things like what we saw the night of Dec. 10, and then the weeks that followed, and even the months up to now, you can't unsee those things and it makes you very sad,” Burnworth said. “It makes you want to kick in and use whatever skills God gave you to help those people, those neighbors that need help so much. I have fundraising experience. I used to run a youth-serving nonprofit for many, many years, and I thought, wow, I’d really be a jerk if I didn't use those skills now, and experience to help out our neighbors.”
The event will start at around 2 p.m. with music beginning between 2:30 and 3 p.m. The day’s lineup will feature Justin Mychals, the Benny Wilson Band, and Quentin Horton. Mychals and Wilson wrote a song about the events in Marshall County.
There will be a silent auction from 2 to 6:30 p.m. and a live auction that will start at 7 p.m. Auction items – which include a kayaking kit, landscaping plants and vegetation and truckloads of gravel, among other things – were donated by a variety of groups.
“This is the first fundraiser that I've worked that has been so easy because people are just full of love for their neighbors,” Burnworth said.
Wristbands for entry will cost $10 for attendees 13 and older. There will also be food trucks and vendors at the event.
“I imagine that what we're experiencing here in the Gilbertsville, Marshall County areas, probably the same as in Dawson Springs and everybody else,” Burnworth said. “We do have some complete devastation. We had wonderful folks that came in and volunteered their time, from churches to emergency response volunteers, that came in our community and are still here even today.”
Anyone interested in donating to the recovery efforts in Marshall County, can mail a check made out to MC Recovery Celebration to 119 Buckhorn Bay Park Rd., Gilbertsville, KY 42044. More information is available by calling Burnworth at 812-430-8497.
“We want to help our neighbors to have hope and faith and to be optimistic that things are going to get better,” Burnworth said. “We want to have a celebration instead of everybody worrying about where they're going to get their set of lumber, that's what this day is all about is celebrating recovery.”
