The Polk County Promise Keepers and Image OutSource Center, Inc. with help of area churches will be presenting the Third Annual Festival of Choirs on March 9-10 at the Cedartown Civic Auditorium.

This year’s beneficiary of all proceeds raised will be the Our House organization for abused women and their children of the area.

Admission is free, but a love offering will be taken. Concessions will be run by the Boy Scout Troop No. 40.

The Festival of Choirs was founded in January 1999 by a local group of men from various churches meeting monthly, using seven promises as a guide toward living their lives. These men were moved by the brutal assault of a tiny 7-year-old girl as she was going to meet a school bus.

The goal was to pay the medical expenses of this child. The community and surrounding areas joined in a wonderful show of unity and love by putting 13 choirs from as far as Atlanta, Calhoun, and Carrollton together with local choirs and groups.

More than $6,370 was raised and all of it went to pay off the final bills and provide $465 to the child’s family to assist in moving expenses.

In December 1999, a need for Bibles for inmates at the Polk County Jail and the State Detention Center became known and the purpose for Festival of Choirs II was apparent. From that, $2,272 was raised and supplied 196 large print Bibles to the Prison Ministry.

The men of Polk County Promise Keepers have agreed to ask the community and surrounding areas to again join in helping provide funding for an organization seeking to protect those in our county that have no place else to turn for refuge for themselves and their children.

The seven promises that Promise Keepers are committed to are:

—Honor Jesus Christ through prayer, worship, and obedience to His Word in the power of the Holy Spirit.

—Pursue vital relationships with a few other men, understanding that I need brothers to help me keep my promises.

—Practice spiritual, moral, ethical, and sexual purity.

—Build strong marriages and families through love, protection, and biblical values.

—Support the mission of my church, by honoring and praying for my pastor and by actively giving my time and resources.

—Reach beyond any racial and denominational barriers to demonstrate the power of biblical unity.

—Influence my world, being obedient to the Great Commandment (Mark 12:30-31) and the Great Commission (Mat. 28:19-20).