Residents can help feed the hungry and give hope to the needy while enjoying an evening of music and fellowship at the 12th Annual A Midsummer Night’s Sing, sponsored by the Galloway Family of Dealerships.

The event, planned for Tuesday, July 28, at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Fort Myers, will be a 90-minute performance of hymns, instrumentalists, and special guests beginning at 7 p.m., with doors opening at 6:30 p.m.

Admission is a voluntary cash donation and at least two cans of food (the more the better) to benefit The Soup Kitchen of Community Cooperative Ministries. Donations of canned goods also will be picked up by The Soup Kitchen for residents who cannot attend the event. Please call 332-7687 to arrange pick-up of food.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we desperately need your help. The need for food is absolutely critical this year. Please love your fellow neighbor and attempt to do what God would do and want you to do. Please show me a man or woman who has not needed a helping hand in his or her life, as well as the children,” said organizer Sam Galloway, Jr.

Galloway said cash donations are especially needed because The Soup Kitchen can buy five times as much food at the Harry Chapin Food Bank for the same amount of money that residents spend at local grocery stores.

“This way, we can take every dollar and make it stretch as far as is humanly possible,” he said.

Galloway, who has made feeding the hungry part of his life’s work, has arranged for refrigerated trucks to take the food to the neighborhoods that most need help this summer. Many school children have nothing to eat after their school lunch on Friday until they return to school on Monday morning.

He recalled eating lunch with the school children at Orange River Elementary recently and one of the children asked for the leftover fish stick on his plate.

“He asked, ‘can I have that?’ I told him he could and he neatly folded a napkin around the fish stick and placed it in his backpack to take home to his family for the weekend. We simply must feed our children,” Galloway emphasized.

“Rising unemployment and the downturn in our local economy have caused many of our neighbors to ask for food to feed their families for the first time in their lives. Our director has told me, ‘Sam, I cannot tell you who, but people are coming for groceries whom you and I know.’ We can’t allow our neighbors and friends to be hungry. Please – we need our community to get together and help with all the canned goods they can. We need to raise the roof with money and food, please!” Galloway said.

Galloway annually sponsors the popular Mrs. Edison’s Hymn Sing as part of the Edison Festival of Light in February. Because more than 4,000 people attend Mrs. Edison’s Hymn Sing in the winter, organizers planned A Midsummer Night’s Sing to allow more local residents to enjoy the same type of activity during the less crowded summer months.

The First Presbyterian Choir and friends will be featured during the evening, which will include sing-a-longs of well-known hymns everybody knows.

Canned goods and cash donations collected at A Midsummer Night’s Sing will be put to use immediately at The Soup Kitchen of Community Cooperative Ministries, a non-profit organization that serves more than 1,000 meals per day through The Soup Kitchen, Meals on Wheels and food programs for families in need. In addition, the agency provides transportation for the frail elderly and Montessori pre-school education for children from working poor families.

“Please try to bring whatever cash donation you can and at least two cans of non-perishable food And, if you’re among those impacted by our poor economy, come anyway and have a good time,” Galloway said.

First Presbyterian Church is located at 2438 Second St., in downtown Fort Myers. The road is open in front of the church. For more information, call 334-2261 or visit www.firstpresbyterianchurchfortmyers.org