McCormick Children's Home Performance features former Savannah Lakes resident

The McCormick Children's Home will have a benefit concert, featuring former Savannah Lakes resident Ora Poole (soloist), the Hilltop Strummers (from Canton, Ga.) and the Garden City Strummers (from Augusta, Ga) at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 18, 2012 at the Savannah Lakes Village Activity Center.

A love offering will be taken for the children's home. After the concert there will be a complimentary ice cream social.

Ora Poole is looking forward to returning to McCormick where she has frequently sung for different occasions since she and her husband, Jerome, moved several years ago to reside in Canton, Ga. She still holds such affection for the people of McCormick and surrounding areas who so graciously opened their hearts and worked so hard to help settle her family into McCormick when they came here after Hurricane Katrina. Ora spends lots of time in Ga., now ministering in churches, senior citizen homes and doing concerts, sometimes along with the Hilltop Strummers. Her other love is tennis.

The Strummers, a group of mountain, (lap/hammer) dulcimers, is a satellite club of the North Georgia Foothills Dulcimer Association. Most participants were new to this instrument, but all desired the opportunity to play this sweet music with others. Needing instruments, members built 24 dulcimers from kits. This kept the cost low for folks who wanted to try playing. The formula worked.

The dulcimer instrument first appeared in the early 19th century among Scots-Irish immigrant communities in the southern Appalachian Mountains. The design of the lap dulcimer, with its droning strings is reminiscent of the sounds of the bagpipe. "Dulcimer" comes from the Latin and Greek, and means "sweet music."

The club has grown from three to more than 40 active members.

For additional information, please contact Irena L. Webster, McCormick Children's Home, Inc. at (864) 391-2931 or mchvcord@gmail.com.