Port Townsend’s 15th-annual concert to benefit Ugandan orphans has assembled a host of local musical performers and musical groups this year, with the First Presbyterian Church on 1111 Franklin St. opening its doors at 2:30 p.m. for the concert starting at 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 18.

Pianists Lisa Lanza, Michael Carroll and Elise Sinclair are slated to be joined by violinist Marina Rosenquist, sopranos Jeannie Oneppo and Lee-Alison Sibley, and a saxophone trio, as part of a concert lineup that includes Port Townsend’s own Squeezebox Rebellion, Combo Choro and All City Choir, the latter directed by Jeannie Oneppo.

Although the Grace Lutheran Church of Port Townsend has been helping to support children in Uganda since 2002, a majority of whom have lost parents due to AIDS, the history of this work extends back even further.

Mark and Sharon Dembro met Father James Ssemakula, a priest at the Anglican church in Stockholm, when Mark was assigned to the U.S. Embassy in the mid-1990s, and when Ssemakula returned to Uganda in 1996, to work with AIDS orphans in Mpigi District, the priest wound up supporting 70 children, with help from the Swedish government and private contributions.

After Grace Lutheran began contributing to his work in 2002, Ssemakula visited Port Townsend in 2005, soliciting further support from other area churches and charitable organizations.

Unfortunately, Ssemakula died while visiting family in Sweden later that same year, but Kenneth Kasule stepped up to ensure the charitable donations made their way to the orphans’ schools.  “He has far exceeded our expectations,” Sharon Dembro said. “He knows each child, their scholastic and other needs, and their aspirations. He visits their schools regularly, and speaks with their teachers. He knows their home situations, and intervenes to resolve problems, which includes counseling them and taking care of their medical needs.”

Kasule was able to contact 35 of Ssemakula’s orphans, all of whom have since finished  secondary school and additional training courses to become middle-class citizens, including nurses, chefs, beauticians, electricians, business owners, teachers and “our first M.D.”, as well as another graduate who’s currently enrolled in medical school.

“Some have earned government scholarships and gone on to university,” Dembro said. “Our children have done so well, and the need for education is so great, that we continued the program with an additional 28 children.”

Of those 28, 11 have already graduated from the program, and their places have been taken by 13 new scholars.

“Several of our orphans have ranked at the top of their districts on national exams,” said Dembro, who estimates a cost of about $500 per student, per year.

“The giving that happens through this concert, year after year, has contributed to setting these young people up for success, in a corner of the world where that’s incredibly difficult,” said  the Rev. Sean Janssen, of Grace Lutheran Church. “The odds are stacked so high against them, until they are able to be connected with Kenneth Kasule.”

Janssen then praised the local musical community for their sustained support of these concerts, particularly Lanza, who’s headlined the concerts since they began.

Suggested donations are requested for attendees 13 years and older.