The Glen Country Music Club is helping out fellow musicians Marylyn and Steve Hayes, who lost about $2000 cash they had raised for the hall restoration, in a burglary last year.
The Hayes family has been part of the Progress Valley farming community for more than 50 years and are well-known in country music circles.
They organised the Muddy Waters Festival at Tokanui for 10 years and members of the family, performing as the Possum Pickers, were named New Zealand Country Music Entertainers of the Year in 1983.
Mr Hayes and the Possum Pickers were instrumental in organising the first Niagara Falls Bluegrass Festival, held in Niagara in 2009 and he was voted Southland Entertainer of the Year in 2018.
The couple were recognised in Southland last year for their services to music.
Mrs Hayes said they had been "working their butts off" to raise funds for work on the Niagara Community Hall at Niagara, between Balclutha and Curio Bay, which was in "desperate" need of a new roof and kitchen upgrade.
The hall was the heart of the Niagara community, and had been the site of many a country music gig over the years, she said.
"[The hall] is a magical place. It just needs a bit of stuff done to it."
The duo had performed multiple gigs over the past five years at which people could make cash donations to the hall do-up fund and it was a real "kick in the guts" the money had been taken by someone, she said.
It had been stored in a cash box taken, along with Mr Hayes’ wallet and other personal items, from their rural home.
"It’s more the hall money we’re upset about because it wasn’t our money ... and we had worked jolly hard to raise that money," Mrs Hayes said.
That burglary was the second at their home in a three-week period - musical equipment, petrol and tools were taken in the previous break in.
The couple had since increased security at their property.
"We are like Fort Knox now. We’ve got cameras."
She had high praise for the police’s follow-through and handling of the incidents.
The community had also rallied.
Raffles, firewood sales and, now the Glen Country Music Club concert were all part of the efforts to re-raise the money following the burglary.
Backing bands, including artists from as far as Taieri Mouth were coming to support the event.
"Everyone has been so generous. It’s been amazing."
The fundraiser concert, being held at the Invercargill Workingmen’s Club tomorrow, features the Club as well as Mr and Mrs Hayes, their two children, Lachie and Kelsi Hayes, Nick Bourke, Brian Kennard, Maureen Calvert, Brendan Mason and more. It starts at 2pm.
- By Toni McDonald
