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Schools

Rockin' For A Reason

Saturday's concert at Stevenson High School will help raise funds for local and war-torn children.

’s football stadium morphs into an outdoor music venue Saturday for a rock concert to benefit underfunded local schools and oppressed children in Africa.

The Invisible Children Benefit Concert is sponsored by Invisible Children in association with at the high school.

Invisible Children is a nationally known social action organization seeking to end the use of children as soldiers in a bloody war raging in Central Africa.

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"The concert is our main event at Stevenson. It's very important to help us to our word out," said Gina Li, a Stevenson junior and a local organizer for Invisible Children.

The organization is teaming with Edufund, a new club at Stevenson that solicits money from local businesses and funnels it to local schools with limited resources.

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“Their aim is to stop [the use of children in the conflict]," said Jed Stone, a Stevenson junior and Edufund president and founder. “With money from this concert, they want to help build schools. We have similar missions.”

Rebel forces in Central Africa abduct local children and force them into the military, taking them from their schools and families. Invisible Children hopes to end the conflict, bring the children home and restore schools and communities ravaged in the conflict.

The organization makes documentaries of the conflict and its impact and shows them around the world, targeting young people to help in their cause.

Stone said Edufund expects to receive 30 percent of the profit from the concert, scheduled from 2:30 to 7:30 p.m. Saturday, while the rest of the revenue will benefit Invisible Children.

Tickets will be available to the public for $4 at the door; a $10 ticket includes an Invisible Children T-shirt. In case of rain, the concert will be moved inside the Stevenson field house.

The concert lineup includes student bands Signs and Symbols, Whisper Club, Jams and Shwitz and Justin Pankiewicz. Stone said that each band will play for 30 to 45 minutes.

Chipotle Mexican Grill will provide free food and there will be pizza and desserts, Stone said, although vendors hadn’t been finalized earlier in the week.

The concert is but one fundraiser on the schedule for Edufund.

Each year, Stevenson sets up boxes into which students deposit used school supplies at the end of the year.

“We’ve been given the opportunity to take over that,” Stone said. “So we’ll be donating those supplies to schools.”

Also on the books is a June 14 golf fundraiser, probably at the in Buffalo Grove.

While the primary mission of Edufund is to help local businesses link up with underfunded schools, Stone said the new club is focusing on “building our infrastructure.”

Our website is almost done and presentable,” he said. “We’ve been working on the concert with Invisible Children and building our credibility to go out and raise money.”

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