Rock4aCure

Hey, Rachel speaking!

Rock4aCure, for those of you who don’t know, was a cancer research benefit concert that took place at the Great Neck Library’s Levels teen center, this past April 12th. For those of you who could not make it, it was really a blast and based on the turnout and the reaction of the crowd, there will DEFINITELY be a Rock4aCure 2009 on the way.

Just wanted to thank everybody who played at Rock4aCure, everybody who came, everybody who donated, and everybody who helped make it happen. Even though we didn’t raise as much as I had hoped that we would, I still think that this concert was the proudest moment of my life. I cannot even lie about that, I truly have never been prouder than I was when I got up on that levels stage and made my dream a reality. 

I won’t bore you with details of the long hours and careful planning over months and months that went into the production of this concert. I will tell you that it took more out of me than anything I’ve ever done before, but in the end, the smiles of the people in the crowd truly made it worthwhile.

After the concert, i told a friend of mine why the concert truly was a success. It wasn’t the sheer awesomeness of the bands, or even the money raised. It was the smile on one girl’s face. perhaps it was the first time she had ever been to levels. Perhaps she had only come for one band, perhaps she didn’t even buy a cd tonight. But during a performance, something told me to glance over to this girl. As I took my eyes off the result of so many months of hard work and planning, I saw something better than music. It was the face of joy. Joy that music had brought to her, joy that I helped bring. It was like a little miracle to my inexperienced eyes. It may have been the first time that I truly understood how music can make a life worth living, outside of the frame of my own mirror. I finally understood how I wasn’t responsible for the true beauty that this concert conveyed. It was the music. I suppose it has been all along.

Once again, I’d like to thank everybody for their contributions to the concert, and I want to let everybody who is reading this right now know that if we never open our eyes, we will never see. There is no way to make our dreams come true if we don’t get a little bit crazy. And most importantly, when your heart tells you to take your eyes off the big picture, it could make all the difference in the world. Sometimes the smaller picture is what makes the music worth making and our lives worth living.

Please, I ask all my readers, never feel like you can’t make something happen. In our open world and open eyes, everything is visible, everything is possible, and everything we do and see brings us closer to what we need. 

 

Thank you.

Rachel Marks