Springfield Street Choir

Don’t miss our concert this Friday night!

Springfield's homeless 'Street Choir' preps for first concert since start of pandemic - Springfield Daily Citizen Editor's note: The original version of this story misidentified which choir Kenny Kabak is affiliated with. He leads the Queen City Chorale. Joy Lacy

We are very sad to have to announce today that we are once again suspending Street Choir rehearsals indefinitely due to the uncontrolled spread of COVID-19 in our community. While Springfield made an effort to protect our vulnerable homeless neighbors in the early part of the pandemic, the resources that existed last year -- like a theoretical quarantine shelter, or hotel rooms for medically vulnerable individuals -- no longer meaningfully exist, which has caused sick, covid+ people to seek shelter where they always do -- around other homeless people. Thus, we are fearful of a significant outbreak within the homeless population in the coming days, and will be doing everything we can to preserve the life and health of our beloved singers. Today, that means suspending rehearsals until Springfield’s case rate goes down, health care becomes accessible, and more people are vaccinated.

To that end: roughly 45-50% of Street Choir and the homeless population at large are vaccinated. We will be partnering with The Connecting Grounds to provide valuable gift cards as incentives to members of the street community who choose to be vaccinated. We are grateful for your financial support, and we think that using our funds to get people vaccinated is the best way to bring the choir back together soon.

We wish it wasn't this way -- our singers had been making such good progress, and we love being able to share time and space and music with them. But, our first imperative is keeping people alive, and that's what we're doing.