August 2024 News

Labor Day weekend traditionally marks summer's end in the United States. However, if you have been providing entertainment through word, music, and art for 10 years, you deserve a special dispensation to extend that summer in celebration. This year, that is exactly what the Charles Bruce Foundation intends to do!

September 7th, we encourage you to pack your lawn chairs, picnic baskets, put on your dancing shoes, and head out to Thornwald Park for a day of music. Best of all, it's all free!

First up will be The LeBlancs - Ric LeBlanc has been the voice of Cheap Sneakers for decades! Theresa's a world-class vocalist. They've been integral players at events sponsored by your contributions ever since our start all those years ago! They'll be performing acoustic rock, folk, and country music, including vocal combination covers of Melissa Etheridge, Tom Petty, Janice Joplin, Bryan Adams, Jennifer Nettles Journey, CCR, Stevie Nicks, Bob Seger, Bonnie Raitt and many others.

Next up, Kevin Neidig, winner of Central Pennsylvania Music Awards Best Americana Artist.

Rounding out the lineup is one of our favorite and most often-supported artists, Cumberland Honey. Their original music from Cumberland County, PA. features sweet harmonies of folk, soul and a taste of bluegrass.

It's one whole wonderful day of music and joy! We'll even have birthday cake!

But wait, when the concert's over, your summer's still not done! The next day, you are encouraged to join us at Bosler Library as we celebrate America's First Amendment with a live reading of the highly acclaimed, but, sadly, highly censored book All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson. Whether you're a voice performer or just love reading, please join as we read aloud the first hundred-page section of this fantastic book. Please use the button below to email Pat LaMarche if you'd like to be one of our live readers. Prefer to come hear the book read? Just pop into Bosler and grab a seat in the conference room.

But what about the artists? Don't you worry. We haven't forgotten them. We have had the privilege of supporting many illustrators during the past 10 years, and you will be able to view an exhibit of their work during our live reading.

So, free up one more weekend for this no-cost, exciting, extension to your summer. Thanks to your 10 years of support for writers, artists, and musicians, you deserve a rollicking good time, and we are here to give it to you! See you in September!

It is a sad fact that the unhoused suffer the inhumanity of being overlooked. As you probably know if you follow the Homeless Remembrance Blanket Project newsletters, places like Grants Pass, Oregon and Gavin Newsom's California are cruelly setting an example for the rest of the nation to push the unhoused away so you never get to see them!

You now have the opportunity to ensure that some of the most vulnerable amongst the unhoused populations are not hidden by supporting our latest Kickstarter campaign for Losers Weepers. A new comic book from the WAM! imprint gives Micah Davis-Culbertson her first opportunity to use twenty years of drawing journal experience to breathe life into her sketches. Coupled with Phil LaMarche's astute understanding of comic prose, this comic promises to expose the reader to a world that should not remain hidden.

To help us get this comic into your hands and the hands of the political leaders who need to see a better way, we ask that you use the link below to kick in a few dollars to our Kickstarter campaign. We even have a great selection of rewards to sweeten the deal.

One of the unique joys we have at the Charles Bruce Foundation is to work with Caitlin's Smiles as they distribute to ill and injured young people. Our heartfelt thanks goes out to all of you who donated to our recent GoFundMe to get books to kids in the hospital. You can imagine how excited those kids will be to see Major Tom Versus the Spiders from Mars, Priscilla, Kursid Kids, or Yucky Mucky Mushrooms, depending on the age group. Your help allows us to expand our outreach - all the time! Thanks so much for helping kids access books of their very own at some pretty difficult times in their lives. If you would like to help support ill children with books, click the link below to contribute.