NEEDHAM [December 13, 2006] - On Sunday, January 14, from 2 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., seventeen teen bands participating in the Needham-based Plugged In Teen Band Program will make their debut public performances at a concert benefiting the African AIDS organization Keep a Child Alive (KCA), a charity selected by the Plugged In teens themselves.

"Plugged In is honored to support Keep a Child Alive," says co-founder Sandra Rizkallah. "Several months ago, Plugged In students gathered to discuss potential beneficiaries for our January concert. AIDS in Africa was suggested as a chosen cause, and Keep a Child Alive, with its passionate and dedicated membership and important mission, is the perfect choice."

Keep a Child Alive was founded by Leigh Blake in 2002 to bring attention and urgently needed care to African children living with-and dying from-a pandemic escalating out of control. Ninety percent of children worldwide who are living with HIV/AIDS are in sub-Saharan Africa. And today, as anti-retroviral treatment (ARV) transforms AIDS into a manageable condition for Americans, tens of millions of Africans with HIV/AIDS have neither access to-nor ability to pay for-the treatment. And to date, more than 12 million African children have been orphaned by the disease.

Keep a Child Alive asks Americans to help with a donation of one dollar a day-or $30 a month- to fund essential initiatives including funding for ARV treatment and services for children and families, nutritional projects, training and employment of health care workers, and the building and expansion of sites where ARV treatment can be made available and AIDS orphans can receive care.

Plugged In students will learn more about the organization and its mission on Thursday, December 28, when KCA College Chapter Leaders from the Boston area join them at a one-day workshop at the Unitarian Church in Needham. The film "Living with Slim," a documentary profile of seven African children (ages 6 to 17 years old) who are living with HIV, will be screened.

Later in the day, Plugged In teens will participate in a song-writing workshop with the Boston-based empowerment organization Project: Think Different, where they will write, and later record a song about Keep a Child Alive and AIDS in Africa. The Plugged In teens will perform the song live at the January 14 concert, and CDs of the benefit recording will be sold at the show. Plugged In is a non-profit program established by Rizkallah and her husband, Tom Pugh, to provide area youth with the opportunity to work together in bands, building self-confidence and developing performance skills and songwriting abilities, and most importantly, learning how to use their talents to make a positive difference in the world.

This fall saw Plugged In's highest enrollment yet.

"When we started the program, we had five students," says Pugh. "Today we have 72. We've grown larger every year, and have learned that performing for a cause that they care about is a huge motivator for these kids. It's an incredibly gratifying process."

Previous Plugged In concerts have benefited organizations including Seeds of Peace, which brings together Arab and Jewish teenagers to learn conflict resolution skills and develop trust and empathy; the Tobacco Free Mass Coalition; The I Love Music Foundation, established by Boston Celtic Walter McCarty to promote music opportunities for Boston youth; the Cam Neely Foundation for Cancer Care; the Tsunami aid organization Music for Relief; Amnesty International, and the Elias Fund, providing financial support for the education of underprivileged youth in Zimbabwe. Among those who have joined the Plugged In teens at previous concerts are local sports stars Walter McCarty and Doug Flutie, musician Chad Urmston of Dispatch and rock act The Charms, and Zimbabwean world music superstar Thomas Mapfumo.

Plugged In teens performing at the January 14 benefit concert are from towns throughout the Boston area, including Acton, Arlington, Belmont, Brookline, Framingham, Franklin, Holbrook, Hopkinton, Jamaica Plain, Lynnfield, Medfield, Medford, Millis, Natick, Needham, Newton, North Chelmsford, Sherborn, Somerville, Wellesley, Westwood, and West Roxbury.

Tickets are $16.50 for students and $21.50 for adults, and can be purchased by calling the Regent Theatre at 781/646-4849 or online at www.regenttheatre.com.

For more information about the Plugged In Teen Band program, please visit www.pluggedinband.org or call 781/956-4281. For more information about Keep a Child Alive, please visit www,keepachildalive.org.

For press inquiries, contact Chris Kelly, Fifth House Public Relations, at 617/532-0574 or ckelly@fifthhousepr.com.

The Plugged In Teen Band Program was established in 2002 by Tom Pugh and Sandra Rizkallah. Pugh, a Berklee alumni and musician for thirty years, is the music director for Plugged In. He is a member of two Boston-based bands and has played at the Montreal Jazz Festival. He has also been an engineer at WGBH in Boston for more than twenty years. Sandra Rizkallah has a degree in film and television from Emerson College, has produced her own documentaries, and has worked in the post-production department of Nova at WGBH.