Miss Shelby County sponsors Miracle Music Concert

Published 11:33 am Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Jessica Andrews, the reigning Miss Shelby County 2009, is sponsoring the Miracle Music Concert ’09 on Jan. 30.

The concert will feature Edens Rain, a female duet with Miss Alabama 2004 Shannon Gryska and Leila Holley, who perform Christian soulful music in a Southern style. Beautiful and talented Jamie Langley, Miss Alabama 2007, will sing as well. The Lucky Stiffs, featuring Bruce Andrews and Cory Tucker, will perform their original blues gospel and American Music. This band won Birmingham’s Magic City Blues Society competition in 2002 and competed in the International Blues Challenge in Memphis.

The profits from the concert support the Children’s Miracle Network of which Birmingham’s Children’s Hospital is affiliated. As part of the Miss America Organization, each local and state title winner is responsible for raising money for the Children’s Miracle Network, the official national platform for the Miss American Organization. This alliance between the two began in 2007 to help increase awareness and funds for the 170 Network hospitals, as well as the Miss America Scholarship Program.

These hospitals treat 17 million children a year for every disease imaginable: cancer, type 1 diabetes, pediatric AIDS, muscular dystrophy, heart disease, leukemia, sickle cell anemia, asthma, accident trauma and others. Since its inception, the Children’s Miracle Network has raised over $2.2 billion dollars.

The Miss America Scholarship Program is the largest provider of scholarship assistance for young women in the world, providing more than $45 million in cash and tuition scholarships each year. The Miss Shelby County Pageant, sponsored by the Vignette Club of Columbiana, raised more than $12,000 from corporate and personal donations to last year’s winners.

The concert starts at 7:30 p.m. at Westwood Baptist Church in Alabaster. Tickets are $10 (children 6 and under free) and can be purchased at the door or by calling 835-8483. Checks should be made payable to Miracle Music.