Says organizer Annette Venables: “Please come out and join us for this fun event! This will be a very eclectic show with performances by local icons and favorites, Indian music, Bulgarian music and dance, a youth a cappella group, and a few surprises.
The Santal culture is deeply steeped in music and dance. I can’t think of a more fun way to honor our students and help build up our scholarship fund than a concert celebrating diverse voices.
As we enter the holiday season—let’s tune our voices and our hearts to gratitude and hope. Thanks to you, our students have a lot to celebrate too!”
Performers include Lorin Rowan, Revati Natesan, Gregory Rathje, ‘Til Dawn, Maria Creascova, Gary Scheuenstuhl and Musical Feast and Kate Moore.
As they have for the past seven years, Mill Valley residents Annette and Paul Venables and their supporters are leading an effort to support education for children from the Santal tribe, a group that has a longstanding history of facing prejudice and generational poverty in Kolkata, India.
The Venables support the Santal people via Tribe Rising India, their Mill Valley-based nonprofit that builds schools and provides educational opportunities for the Santal people in West Bengal, India.
Tribe Rising’s support for the Santal people began in 2017, when Father Maria Joseph Savariappan made an impromptu visit to Mill Valley’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church to step in for a vacationing Pastor Pat Michaels. Savariappan educated parishioners about the plight of the Santal, and that education has had cascading impacts thousands of miles away ever since. Their work in support of those people has continued despite a 7,800-mile span between Mill Valley and St. Xavier’s Gurap campus, the hub for post-primary education.
“They know how to do hard things,” Venables says of the children. “They do them every day.”
An ever-growing number of local restaurants are generously supporting this event, including La Ginestra, Sweetwater/Rock & Rye and more so we hope to encourage folks out to dine in MV after the show.