Picking up the band at the airport

On October 20th 2006 the South District hosted Horizon 06, a benefit concert to raise funds for needs at Essex 5 in Windsor. The following is a report by Nathan Reed who was the lead organizer of the event.

One of the programs in Windsor (Essex 5) has an elevator that has been out of service for a few years now. The elevator’s maximum weight capacity is not great enough to support people in electric wheelchairs. About six months ago some of the staff at Essex 4 and 5 began talking about how we could raise funds to replace the elevator with one having greater weight capacity.

We knew the price would be about $40,000 and we already had some money set aside from donations. We knew that the event would have to be big to generate enough funds to accomplish our task. We also knew that we might not raise enough to cover the entire cost of replacing the elevator, but felt if we could even get half way, the ministry might possibly be able to help with the rest.

A small committee of seven people was pulled together. Our fundraising discussions started with small ideas but our vision gradually grew into something much bigger with talk of a concert. We briefly thought about using local talent but became more excited about the possibility of bringing in a more well known band that could draw a larger crowd.

Signing autographs

As the committee continued planning we decided to bring in one local band (2-Fish) who could draw a local crowd as well as another band called Hello Kelly from Orangeville, who have a fan base in the Windsor/Chatham area. Although raising funds was the initial goal, we quickly realized that raising awareness was also very important. We decided to see if Jon and Rhonda from WMUZ Christian radio in Detroit would be willing to host the event, they agreed and so we had a platform to raise awareness at the event as well as over the radio.

We could see the Lord’s hand in this all the way through and we ensured to keep him at the center off all the planning. Parkwood Gospel Temple in Windsor, which seats 2000 people, offered up their sanctuary at no charge to us. The After’s reduced their fee for us and we saw many roadblocks come up that the Lord took us through.

We started with a committee of 7 people but by the day of the event, we had approximately 30 volunteers who came out to help. The event ran as smoothly as any first time event could be expected to. Overall, we had roughly 700 people at the event and it was an amazing show.

Fans get a picture

One woman who has CP and uses a walker to aid her mobility, was dancing near the stage and Rhonda (one of our hosts) was standing beside her. This woman took hold of Rhonda’s arm and began dancing with her. The two of them danced through the entire song. Afterwards Rhonda shared how that experience touched her. She came to me back stage with tears in her eyes, expressing just how excited this woman was to dance with her. She shared how moved she was being a part of this event and refused to take any money from CH as payment.

We were inspired and moved to be a part of Horizon 06, the entire committee has agreed to come back and plan for Horizon 07 which will be bigger and better Lord willing. I hope I am not leaving out any important information, there was so much that happened I could never get it all down on paper.

Nathan Reed
Program Manager Essex 4&5