Back for its third year, a popular annual fundraiser is asking guests to shake, shake, shake in order to raise money to fight neurological disorders.
R&B and soul singer Emily Chambers started the benefit concert – called Shake Shake Shake – several years ago in order to raise money for Parkinson Society British Columbia, a non-profit organization that provides support, shares information and raises money for programs and research that help those affected by Parkinson’s disease.
Chambers, who grew up on the North Shore and attended West Vancouver Secondary, has a personal connection to the illness.
“My dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s in 2002,” Chambers tells the North Shore News over the phone from Nashville, Tenn., where she now resides. “It’s very gradually progressing for him. Parkinson’s is a different beast for everybody.”
But about five years ago, Chambers and her family started noticing the effects of Parkinson’s – which can affect a person’s motor system and central nervous system – more acutely in her father.
“We’d go and visit and maybe some little things would happen and we’d just always be like, ‘Oh, you know, he’s just getting old and tired.’ And then we started just being like, my mom deals with this every day and she’s really his rock and his major support. It’s a full-time job,” she says. “This is actually happening. What can we do?”
This year’s Shake Shake Shake concert will feature performances from musicians Khari Wendell McClelland, Dawn Pemberton, and, for those that upgrade to VIP tickets, a select performance from guitar legend Paul Pigat. Chambers will also be belting out a number of R&B and soul tunes, including recent originals and some songs from her 2016 Magnolia EP.
Chambers says she became a soul music convert after growing up across the street from jazz singer Joani Taylor, who taught her music and introduced her to Motown from the age of eight through 18. R&B and soul wasn’t a big part of Chambers household growing up, but, “Joani really steered my passion in that way.”
Over the last two years, Shake Shake Shake has brought in about $30,000 for Parkinson Society B.C., Chambers adds.
This year, the fundraiser concert is dividing the proceeds between Parkinson Society B.C. and MS Society Canada because: “They’re very similar in that they’re neurological diseases and I think we wanted to expand the outreach as much as we could as well.”
The Shake Shake Shake benefit concert is taking place May 25 from 7:30 to 11 p.m. at the Imperial in Vancouver. Tickets, which range from $30 to $35, are available at parkinson.bc.ca/shake2018.
“It’s brought us all closer together,” Chambers says about her family and the event. “I wanted to be able to help out in whatever ways that I can, so this fundraiser is definitely one of them.”
