Cat's Cradle decks the halls for a cause

Cat’s Cradle is about to get a little more jolly.

Tonight the concert venue, in conjunction with local church Love Chapel Hill, will be hosting their concert event, “Christmas at the Cradle.” The event is a benefit to raise money for TABLE, a local charity that helps to provide meals to school-age children.

Christmas at the Cradle will be held in Cat’s Cradle Backroom, and will feature three local bands: Delta Son, Hardworker and Lee Anderson of Look Homeward.

Matt LeRoy, the teaching pastor at Love Chapel Hill who helped organize the event, said the concert is an event where the community can come together.

“Our passion and dream for it is that it’d be a gift,” LeRoy said. “Not a night about us, but a night about our town and showing our love to the community.”

LeRoy chose TABLE as the beneficiary because he said food is such a central part of the Chapel Hill and Carrboro culture, yet there’s a significant number of children in the area who still can’t get the meals they need.

“The numbers are staggering – it’s one of the things that grabbed my heart,” he said. “We love their mission and we love what they do, and this was a chance to partner with them.”

Ashton Tippins, the executive director at TABLE, said they’re honored to be a part of the event.

“It’s something that gets us ready for the season of giving,” she said. “It also is going to be a great benefit to our program, to help us feed local kids.”

Jason Tuggle, vocalist for Delta Son, said he’s excited to be a part of the benefit.

“We just love the music scene in the area,” he said. “Christmas time and Thanksgiving is all a season of giving.”

The bands are volunteering their time for free, and he said it’s a way to interact with the community and be charitable at the same time.

Tuggle also is a huge supporter of TABLE, he said, because he feels they’re an integral resource for local children.

“Meeting people’s needs in a tangible way is something I’m passionate about,” he said.

Tuggle said they will be performing a mix of their own songs as well as some Christmas songs.

Sus Long, a UNC graduate, vocalist and guitarist for Hardworker, said they’ll also be performing Christmas songs, including an original.

“I wrote a song, kind of a more serious song, about our present moment, and how hard it is to look at Christmas and celebrate Christmas when I feel like a lot of the people around me are scared and are disappointed,” she said.

She said they jumped at the opportunity to perform because TABLE, and generally serving the community, aligns with their beliefs as a band.

“We write songs about incarceration and wealth disparity and racism,” she said.

“It’s important to us that we write songs about those things, but that we also come out and support organizations that are doing something about them, like TABLE.”

@pconellly

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