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I had the pleasure of meeting Frank Barnaba, and his Grass Roots Nonprofit Agency Directors and Youth Team.....TBC...
The Barnaba Institute Benefit Concert:
Music Notes: Barnaba Callings
The local pop scene gets politicized in Old Saybrook.
Thursday, June 05, 2008
By Jefferey Hart
About 60 people milled around the backyard of the large white home of local musician Christopher Listorti two Saturdays ago in Old Saybrook. Balmy breezes blew as band after band took to the back-porch stage and sent songs ringing into the warm, suburban night. Volunteers in bright yellow t-shirts dotted the lawn, manning information/donation tables and playing badminton.
New London's Quiet Life and Trumbull's Monitor and the Merrimack played early sets and then hit the road, heading off to other engagements. Each brought their own version of American roots music and original contemporary songwriting. Indie, punk, and folk/emo followed, from Jonny Rodgers, Shutting Down the Factory and Ned Moore respectively. Listorti—who, along with outreach worker Melissa Roby, organized the event—gave an enchanting and dynamic performance of his own compositions.
Listorti's voice is strong and pure, using "mic control" to great effect, and blending effortlessly with Ned Moore, who sang harmonies during one tune. The songs are beautifully fingerpicked acoustic folk with sweeping melodies. As a stageman, Listorti is funny and engaging. He continually expressed, onstage and off, how happy he was with the event's success in bringing money and attention to the Barnaba Institute, a grass-roots nonprofit agency that rescues young women who've been abused and forced into prostitution.
Many people think of human trafficking—a euphemism for 21st century slavery—as something going on far away in Eastern Europe or Asia. In fact, it's also happening right here in Connecticut. The infamous Bloods gang makes no attempt to hide the fact that it runs prostitution rings in places like Waterbury, Bridgeport and Hartford.
The Barnaba Institute's outreach director, Jen Sheehin, says that according to a Waterbury undercover police officer, "50 to 150 girls are rotated in and out of the city each week." One of the difficulties in reaching out to these girls is the limited amount of time the outreach workers have to build trust. Often, the victims will only have a few moments away from their pimp, and will be moved from city to city every few days. Beyond the promise of help, outreach workers start with simple gifts of food, hygiene products or clothing. Frustrating the workers' efforts are the brutal but frighteningly effective means used by the pimps to control the women including abusing them or separating them from their children. This threat is often enough to keep the captives from trying to escape or seek help, explains the institute's director, Alexis Taylor Letos.
Shockingly, many of the young prostitutes on the streets of cities up and down the East Coast are taken from quiet shoreline towns in Connecticut. For this reason the Barnaba Institute has placed an emphasis on preventative education.
To find out more about the institute and its founder Frank Barnaba's 30-year mission of rescuing girls from abuse and servitude, go to barnabainstitute.org.
This was a multi-band house party with a difference—helping restore the concept of what "home" can mean to those who've been denied one.
Thank you for visiting my fundraising page.
Donating through this website is simple, fast and totally secure. It is also the most efficient way to support my fundraising efforts.
Many thanks for your support.
Yours Truly,
Chris Listorti
www.chrislistorti.com
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