The Hearts for Ghana Organization will present a free event June 25
They float above the heads of many who have come from all over the area to learn about a cause for a place across the ocean. These small invisible notes exist solely to incite change.

The First Baptist Church in The Colony will host a concert to benefit street children in Ghana. The concert, presented by the nonprofit organization Hearts for Ghana, will feature opera singer Youna Hartgraves and concert pianist Eduardo Rojas and is open to the public. The event begins at 6 p.m. June 25.


Hearts for Ghana provides personal development, life skills, educational services and health support to children who live on the streets of Ghana. About 3,000 children live on the streets of Kanashie, a district in Ghana where the organization focuses its mission, according to the Hearts for Ghana website.

“This is important because we are making an impact in the lives of children,” said Della Quashie, Hearts for Ghana founder and president.

Quashie began his mission for Ghana after finding children sleeping on the streets, he said. He reached out to local pastors for support, starting with the Second Baptist Church in Houston. He joined the First Baptist Church in The Colony and shared his vision there, too.

After realizing Hartgraves and her family had spent time in Ghana, she and Quashie talked. Hartgraves told Senior Pastor Mark Richardson she would sing for free for the church to support their causes. Richardson mentioned Hearts for Ghana wanted to raise money and thought a concert would be a good opportunity.

“I was excited,” Quashie said. “She can relate to what I’m trying to tell people over here.”

He said putting on the concert would help spread the message that they can help at least some children.

After growing up in Ghana, Hartgraves was looking for a way to give back to the community she had spent years getting to know. Her parents went to Ghana for missionary work during Hartgraves’s teen years, and the now lirico-spinto soprano went to school and interacted with other children in the community.


Donation or a ticket is not required for entry to the concert. Hargraves said this was because she wanted people to enjoy the music and feel inspired even if they could not afford a ticket. Hartgraves said any size of donation is welcome. Despite its location and some religious songs, she said anyone was invited regardless of their religious persuasion.

“It’s all going to be humans’ cry towards the Lord, human prayer, strengthening our hearts through the faith that we have,” she said. “It’s that kind of human outcry that we all go through in difficult times.”

Hartgraves said her ability to perform is why she does benefit concerts.

“I don’t believe it just came to me,” she said. “It was like a pathway that life had led me (to). I don’t think it’s completely mine, so I feel it is right to share this with the community.”

Hartgraves said she wants people to leave learning about the organization and what it does. While she knows everyone has their own struggles, she said. She said she saw the everyday struggles of street children in Ghana.

“I want them to leave with the sense of ‘we can do something to make an impact in the life of somebody outside the U.S.,’” Quashie said. “‘I want them to have the sense that the little they have, yes, can make an impact in the life of someone, somewhere in this world.”

Souece: thecolonycourierleader