For the average Long Island teenage girl, afterschool activities might involve hopping from store to store at Roosevelt Field Mall or planning an epic Sweet 16 at Chateau La Mer. But Nicole Borden, 16, Jamie Klaben, 15, and Nicole Zion, 16, spend their free time contributing to combating modern-day child slavery in Ghana, Africa. In fact, the three Hewlett High School sophomores have organized a benefit concert at Manhattan’s Hammerstein Ballroom to raise money for this cause.
On Friday, March 20, Long Island artists Push Play and Saving Jane are scheduled to perform, along with other musical acts and celebrities including members of the cast of MTV’s The City, at the benefit. Also at the event, author Pam Cope will present a $68,800 check to the International Organization of Migration (IOM), which will provide the necessary funding for the rescue of 16 Ghanaian children within the month of March alone.
“It’s such a great idea to have this kind of show to raise money and awareness,” says Steve Scarola of Push Play. “It’s great to use our music to help others.”
Borden says the idea was born out of sheer love for attending local concerts. She wanted to figure out a way to “have fun while making a difference.” The girls quickly got to work on a long list of promoters and began making phone calls. “We just kept calling and calling and calling,” says Klaben.
“It was a learning experience but now I know how to do different things I wouldn’t have known before,” adds Borden.
Perhaps the most ambitious element of the concert is the venue in which it will be held: Hammerstein Ballroom, which holds 2,500 occupants. The girls chose Hammerstein due to its availability on the desired date, as well as its close proximity to Penn Station.
“You don’t have to take a cab or subway, it’s close enough to walk,” says Zion. Taking this into consideration, the girls hope other Long Island children’s parents won’t worry about them going into the city.
For the girls, the event hadn’t seemed real until tickets had gone on sale. “It was like, ‘Oh my God, people are buying tickets!’” says Klaben. Tickets for the event are available through Ticketmaster.com and Ticketmaster vendors. In efforts to raise additional funds to contribute to One Is Greater Than None—the charity through which the monies raised will be donated—the girls have developed an online auction called biddingforgood.com where people have donated everything from “sports memorabilia to signed CDs, posters, gift certificates… True Religion donated jeans, clothing from Effie’s…,” says Zion. All proceeds go directly to One is Greater Than None and contribute to the donation that will be handed over to the IOM representative.
The girls hope that the concert will heighten awareness of the vast atrocity that is occurring in Ghana. They also hope that others will be inspired to do something charitable.
“We’re really fortunate to have what we have, a lot of kids aren’t as fortunate as we are,” says Klaben. “They’re given terrible conditions, we want to make them less painful for them.” Children in Ghana are sold into slavery, some of whom are younger than the girls who founded the organization. “[People] don’t want to believe it so they don’t want to take the time to realize that it’s an ongoing problem,” says Klaben.
“You have to stop saying, ‘I’m too young,’” says Borden. “The smallest little donation can make a difference, any contribution, whether its money, or time, it’s going to be making someone happy.”