This bass guitar signed by Paul McCartney is just one of the many celebrity signatures (Willie Nelson, Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Aretha Franklin, and more) available on instruments, albums, album covers, pictures, and posters at HELP Hits the High Notes fundraiser and silent auction Oct. 24 at Brewster Street Ice House. Courtesy Photo Hammons Education Leadership Program

This bass guitar signed by Paul McCartney is just one of the many celebrity signatures (Willie Nelson, Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Aretha Franklin, and more) available on instruments, albums, album covers, pictures, and posters at HELP Hits the High Notes fundraiser and silent auction Oct. 24 at Brewster Street Ice House. Courtesy Photo Hammons Education Leadership Program

Local dignitaries are warming up their vocal chords for HELP Hits the High Notes 6-9 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24, at the Brewster Street Ice House, 1724 N. Tancahua St. This year, HELP (Hammons Education Leadership Program) lets in the sunshine with a tribute to the 50th anniversary of the musical “Hair.” Participants, which include local bands as well as singing community leaders, promise to keep their clothes on as they “revise the powerful message of love and peace” found in the musical, Hammons said.
A silent auction features such items a guitars from Paul McCartney and Willie Nelson, posters from the 60s, a signed album cover and album from Aretha Franklin, and more.
The annual fundraiser enables HELP to continue expanding the Texas Three-Step career program for middle and high school kids. Last month, the program set up shop in the Taft and Ingleside school districts.
“We’re really coming into San Patricio County with a roar,” said Ridge Hammons, who founded the program in 1998.
The drive behind HELP is to “help young people find the job of their dreams,” he explained.
The Texas Three-Step sets up specially prepared touch-screen computers called Windows on the World at middle and high schools. As a first step, the wide-screen TVs take students on virtual field trips of their choice to job locations across the Coastal Bend.
The second step includes bringing in speakers who make presentations to students on jobs about which they might not otherwise ever learn, opening up new avenues of career interests. For step three, students are taken to worksites to experience first hand the jobs in which they are interested.
The program is made possible through community involvement in events such as HELP Hits the High Notes. For tickets visit findthejobofyourdreams.com.