A Better Life Foundation is an international charity whose purpose is to improve the lives of the disabled and the disadvantaged in one of Africa’s poorest nations: Burkina Faso. ABLF’s all-volunteer American chapter, based in Coral Gables, is hosting a benefit dinner and concert to support its parent organization’s work, at Route 9, Coral Gables, on Saturday, January 26, 2013.
Route 9 is rated 3 stars by the Miami Herald and the “Best Restaurant in Coral Gables” by New Times. Chef, Paola Goldberg, has crafted a signature five-course dinner for the event, which starts at 7:00 p.m. The Three Jacks, Miami’s own prime Celtic rockers – who have helped raise more than a quarter million dollars for charity through concerts here and abroad in recent years – have volunteered to rock the house, starting at 9:30 p.m. This promises to be a great way to have fun while giving money painlessly for a really great cause! All proceeds from the dinner and concert are fully tax deductible.
Location: Route 9, 1915 Ponce De Leon Ave., Coral Gables, FL 33134. Tel: (305) 569-9009. info@route9miami.com Dinner and Concert: $200. Concert only: $100. Tickets available online at http://www.ablfusa.net/ablf-dinner-and-a-concert/ or at the door.
ABLF works to help the poor, the diseased, and the disabled of Burkina Faso, a West African country ranked by the UN and the World Bank one of the poorest in the world. ABLF pays to educate over 500 children in primary and secondary schools, many of whom are disabled. ABLF also trains teachers and village elders on the needs of the disabled and helps make schools accessible to the disabled. In a country with one of the lowest ratios of doctors and nurses in the world, ABLF trains health care workers to better diagnose and treat numerous serious diseases, including malaria. In 2012, the ABLF-trained team treated over 34,000 villagers and educated them in preventive care and treatment. Every year since 2001, ABLF-sponsored surgical teams have provided corrective surgery for children with cleft lip, cleft palate, or clubfoot, and it has partnered with other charities to provide free eye exams, eyeglasses, and cataract surgery. For more on ABLF, and the important work that it does, please go to www.ablfusa.net, or www.facebook.com/ABetterLifeFoundation.
Or e-mail Anders Hoegh at anders.hoegh@hoeghpersen.com or call (305) 215-8715.
More on The Three Jacks:
“The Three Jacks are an amazing Irish/Celtic/Folk/Rock band, a Dade County Dropkick Murphys with better musicians” who play “the foot-stomping, whiskey-drinking, Miami-style Irish party music your Guinness dreams are made of.” New Times. The Jacks’ last album: “kicks and bounces like a hurley swinger after a bucket of Jameson and more than a bit o’ the bitter, without sacrificing high art . . . to create stuff the Pogues . . . wish they’d written.” New Times. In their stage show, The Jacks take a base mix of traditional Scottish and Irish songs, whip in what they call “the 18th-century folk songs we wrote last week,” add re-worked Celtic baroque numbers and Elizabethan dance tunes, and leaven the whole heady brew with rip-out, stomping, fiddle break-downs. Kids get on stage and dance. The crowd sings and laughs along with the band – and everyone goes home happy. For more on The Jacks please go to www.thethreejacks.com, or www.facebook.com/TheThreeJacks.
Or e-mail Henk Milne at henkmilne@aol.com or call (786) 546-3912.