Sparrows offer patriotic music
The Sparrow Singers of Ellensburg perform at a recent community event.
ELLENSBURG - If you're a supporter of the Wounded Warrior Project, and love songs of Americana or patriotic music, you'll be able to enjoy all of that at Kelleher Motors in Ellensburg this Thursday afternoon and evening.
Kelleher Motors will host the Wounded Warrior Tour that day, and the Sparrow Singers, an Ellensburg community choir, will perform twice. They will sing the national anthem at 4 p.m. with full shows to follow at 4:10 and 6 p.m.
If you think Ellensburg may be a little far to go for a community choir concert, it might be good to sample of the Sparrow singers on YouTube. You'll be blown away by their National Anthem. Just search for Sparrow Singers Ellensburg.
According to Sparrow Singer and spokesman Gary Brown, Sparrow Singers sprang from Sparrow Clubs, an organization started in Washington. It was formed to raise money to help children with health issues whose families are overwhelmed with expenses.
Several years ago, a group of singers did a concert to support Sparrow Clubs, and it became the Sparrow Singers.
"Today we're totally independent of Sparrow Clubs but still support them and other worthy charitable causes," Brown said. "Sparrow Singers was formed to do benefit concerts in support of community causes."
Brown, a member of the Submarine Veterans of Eastern and Central Washington, is relatively new to the organization. He read about it in January and started attending the rehearsals.
"I've always enjoyed singing, but never done it in a choir since grade school," he said.
"Several, if not most of the men are military veterans," he added.
The Sparrow Singers count 50 members, but they don't all participate at every event. They continue to recruit singers.
The group sings in four, sometimes five, parts. It's divided about evenly between men and women, basses, baritones, altos and sopranos.
When the F.I.S.H. Food Bank in Ellensburg burned down a year or so ago, the Sparrow Singers joined the community in helping the bank relocate and re-organize.
"We organized a concert, invited another popular group, the Chance Brothers, to join us and raised $1500 for the food bank," Brown said.