Power of Good

M 8 music allows prEslEy rEady to connEct with a "divinity" far above her everyday world. Ready experienced this powerful pull for the first time as a 9-year-old when she attended a Mobile Symphony Orchestra concert with her mother, Patricia. She got the unforgettable opportunity by taking advantage of the Mobile Symphony's Big Red Ticket (BRT) program. "I wasn't particularly interested in the symphony. But the Big Red Ticket really opened my mind to music, and I was captivated," said the 11th-grader, who now plays the bas- soon in the Mobile Youth Symphony Orchestra and dreams of becoming a professional musician. "Music is so powerful. Playing the bassoon kind of allows me to express my feelings." The BRT pro- gram provides free tickets to students in grades K-12 for Sunday afternoon classical performanc- es. Each ticket will admit two students accompanied by a paying adult. During last year's concert season, 355 Mo- bile and Baldwin County students at- tended performances through BRT. The Alabama Power Foundation has been a major sponsor of BRT Making music STORy By CARLA DAVIS PHOTOS COuRTESy OF THE mOBILE SymPHOny The mobile Symphony's Big Red Ticket program not only opens students' minds to classical music, it has inspired many to have music careers. Division Spotlight "Through the support of organizations like Alabama Power Foundation we are able to support these camps free of charge," said Tammy Jackson, director of community relations for Children's Harbor. "The families that visit us are already faced with hardship and generally don't have the opportunity to go on vacation, so coming to camp at Children's Harbor as a family is like a vacation for them." Each camp that Children's Harbor supports is com- prised of families facing the same illnesses. These families get to spend time not only enjoying the beautiful scenery of Lake Martin, they get to enjoy the companionship of people who share their particular challenges. "The wealth of knowledge that families get from each other, the time that these parents and families share and get to support each other is so valuable," Jackson said. Camp BRIDGES serves child and adolescent trans- plant patients and is one of Children's Harbor's longtime partners. "Our partnership with Children's Harbor has al- lowed Camp BRIDGES to host camps for pediatric heart, kidney, liver and lung transplant recipients and their fami- lies for 20 years," said Chrissie Brantley, executive director of the Camp BRIDGES Foundation. "We are honored to be among the illness camps that call Children's Harbor at Lake Martin home each summer." The Alabama Power Foundation has supported Chil- dren's Harbor since the organization was started in 1990. A recent foundation grant helped to fund the construc- tion of a new dining hall as well as a new dormitory with 50 additional bunks. Children's Harbor's old dining hall could hold 75 campers and the rest had to dine outside, no matter the weather. Camps had to turn away families because of the facility's capacity limits. The new dining hall seats 200 and includes a reinforced storm shelter with the same capacity. "The Alabama Power Foundation has enabled us to do so much for the families we serve," Jackson said. "The foundation is really just an extension of who we are. They enable us to enable the camps we work with. The founda- tion cares, they believe in us and we really couldn't do a lot of our projects without their support." Children's Harbor staff members consider themselves blessed to do the work that they do. "You wonder going through life if you ever make a difference in someone else's life," Jackson said. "Our employees know that they just have to walk out their door and come to work to do that." REST continued on from 7

• Cover