TCA student uses gift for music to aid flood relief efforts
Charlotte March wrote the song “Sunday Lunches and Fairy Houses” to honor Camp DeSoto, a place she grew to love over eight summers, and which changed her life for the better.
Now, her words of tribute and memory are making a difference for victims of the July floods that devastated Camp Mystic and the Texas Hill Country.
The senior at Trinity Christian Academy released her song only days before the flooding. It was the first music she had ever made available for purchase and streaming.
When she heard of the disaster, March wasn’t sure what she could do or how much of a difference she could make. But then, she had some encouragement from her mother, who told her, “‘Just be the little drummer boy; bring them what you can.’ Bring them my gift, even if it is small.”
March is donating all the proceeds from “Sunday Lunches and Fairy Houses” to flood relief. She’s matching her sales on iTunes and donating $2 of her savings each time the song is streamed on Apple Music or Spotify. The funds come from her babysitting money, allowance, and birthday and Christmas gifts.
Neighborhood Spotlight
Park Cities
Where the Park Cities Stay Connected.
Her goal is to raise $5,000 for Texans on Mission. The nonprofit has had boots on the ground in Kerrville since the disaster, providing tangible help, as well as emotional and spiritual support to flood victims.
“My main hope is that the funds provide extended relief for families, individuals, and cities affected by the floods,” March said, “and it will also help Texans on Mission continue to do what they’re doing.”
Writing the song was a way for March to express her sadness about her final summer at Camp DeSoto, an all-girls, Christian summer camp in Alabama which she started attending as a nervous 9-year-old. Her mother, aunts, and sister have also been campers.
“Whenever I can’t find the words in a sentence to say, I can find the words in a verse,” said March, who fell in love with playing the guitar when she started taking lessons a decade ago.
The song memorializes special memories about camp, such as DeSoto’s traditional southern Sunday lunches of chicken, mashed potatoes, and beans, and the fairy houses that younger campers built with sticks, moss, and bark, and which made the camp seem magical.
Hearing about the Hill Country flooding and how it impacted a camp so similar to DeSoto, March said, was heart wrenching, especially because her younger sister was in Alabama without her for the first time on July 4.
The efforts of her grandfather also helped inspire the fundraiser. March’s grandparents live in Kerrville. They were unaffected by the flooding, but her grandfather is a member of Texans on Mission and has been working since the disaster to aid flood victims, both as a volunteer and employee.
Some of March’s own friends were once Camp Mystic campers or counselors, and many of the girls who were lost in the flood live in her neighborhood in University Park.
“It was just heartbreaking seeing them go through the heartache of losing somewhere so special,” she said, “and hearing about all the little girls who didn’t get to leave.”
