Special to the Los Alamos Daily Post by Katelyn Littleton, Concert Chair

Los Alamos High School Key Club is organizing a benefit concert for UNICEF’s Project Eliminate. In collaboration with Kiwanis and the rest of K-Family (including Key Club), UNICEF is hoping to eradicate maternal and neonatal tetanus from the world through this project.

The money raised through the concert will go directly to purchasing vaccines and the distribution of preventative health information.

“A vaccination for this type of tetanus will protect a mother and all of her future children from the terminal disease, and it only costs about $1.80,” Key Club Concert Chair Katelyn Littleton said.

Maternal and neonatal tetanus exists in the soil, so when women in rural areas give birth, both the mothers and their babies can be infected with the disease, but through the distribution of the vaccine and information about healthier birthing practices, lives can be saved.

The concert is 3 p.m. Sunday, April 29 at Duane Smith Auditorium. There is a suggested donation of $5 for everyone, and people are welcome to pay at the door.

The concert includes acts by:

• LAHS Bel Canto Choir
• LAHS Orchestra
• Belisama Irish Dance
• LAHS Drum Line
• Deep Space Lions
• LAHS Advanced Ballroom Dance

Key Club is part of K-Family and Kiwanis is the parent organization. Because it is a community service club, members participate in projects like delivering daffodils as a fundraiser for hospice, making ice cream in a bag at Family Festival, and serving pancakes at the Kiwanis breakfasts.

“This year, the Benefit Concert is one of our major events, and we are hoping it will be a huge success,” Littleton said. “What really inspired me to get involved with this particular project was the realization that $1.80 can save multiple lives. Maternal and neonatal tetanus is so easy to prevent, and that is why it is so sad that children and mothers are still dying from it every day. I hope that people in our community will realize that their donation of $5 will make a direct difference in the lives of others. My passion for the project has prompted me to become its leader, but I could not have done all of the work to get this huge concert organized without the rest of the club and our support from Kiwanis.”

Katelyn Littleton, left, and her Key Club team members working at the pasta dinner for the Engleman family whose daughter has severe epilepsy. They are flashing the K in sign language representing the Key Club. Courtesy Photo