Breakfast Club Choir
click on the image below to view the video clip
Since 2002 the Brotherhood’s Breakfast Club has given families with primary-school-aged children living at the Atherton Gardens estate in Fitzroy a healthy, free breakfast every morning before school. We offer a safe and stable environment in which families can eat the ‘most important meal of the day’, play games and socialise.
The club is open to all local families, and many of those attending the Breakfast Club are new arrivals to Australia. For these families breakfast is often an unfamiliar concept. Developing the habit of eating a nourishing meal at the beginning of the day is doing wonders for the children’s concentration and participation at school.
The Brotherhood’s new Ambassador, Jonathon Welch, founder of the Choir of Hope and Inspiration (formerly the Choir of Hard Knocks), thought it would be a great idea to tap into the wonderful spirit and energy of the Breakfast Club kids and produce a song for the festive season – and so the Breakfast Club Choir was born.
Jonathon directed the choir through two song and dance workshops and then a final recording session. The result is a heart-warming and inspiring medley incorporating the songs Ode to Joy and This Little Light of Mine, and the words ‘happy friends together’ sung in Dinka, a major dialect spoken in southern Sudan.
Your support is essential for helping us keep programs like the Breakfast Club running, and for sustaining us as we work towards an Australia free of poverty. In 2011 this work continues with gusto as we commemorate 80 years of the Brotherhood. Be a part of it!
Please donate to the Brotherhood this festive season
Behind the scenes: making the video
After school, on three days in late October and early November, the All Saints Parish Hall in Fitzroy, Melbourne, became a creative powerhouse.
On these afternoons, Jonathon Welch, Brotherhood Ambassador and founder of the Choir of Hope and Inspiration (formerly Choir of Hard Knocks) joined an energetic group of children from the Breakfast Club, and their parents and siblings, to make music for an hour or two.
Jonathon guided the group in singing sessions, harnessing the children’s enthusiasm for movement and dance, particularly hip-hop. The children picked up Ode to Joy and This Little Light of Mine in no time and loved singing ‘happy friends together’ in Dinka.
Well known Melbourne comedian and musician Stephen Blackburn accompanied the group on keyboard throughout the workshops and recording session, and then arranged and produced the recorded song.
The workshops were filmed by talented Melbourne photographer and filmmaker Ross Bird. Ross captured the dynamic atmosphere in the hall and also some wonderful scenes of the kids playing and hip-hop dancing outside afterwards. He then edited it all into the lively Breakfast Club Choir video clip.
The video clip was premiered at a private screening for the children, their parents and all involved in the production on Thursday 18 November. Everyone was thrilled with the result and the kids loved seeing themselves in a video clip.
We’d love to share the Breakfast Club Choir’s uplifting song with as many people as possible this festive season, so please pass it on to your friends and family!