Albums by KC’s Snow Globes and others benefit local, international causes

The Cornish hens are cooked, the furry little vicuna from Peru looks darling perched near the stuffing, and you’ve just raised the Hebron glass goblets for a holiday toast.

Put one of the Snow Globes albums on in the background, and you’ll have set the mood for quite an international holiday meal.

Local musicians Barclay Martin, Lindsey Jones and Rick Willoughby — who make up the Snow Globes — have produced three Christmas-themed albums that benefit various causes. “Can You Hear the Singing?” (2011), “Winter Benediction” (2012) and “To All Living Things” (2013) can be downloaded for $9.99 each at CDBaby.com.

A portion of the proceeds from sales of the first two albums go to the Spofford Home, a residential treatment facility in Kansas City. Spofford provides therapeutic treatment for children 4 to 12 dealing with the effects of physical and sexual abuse, neglect and mental health disorders.

Proceeds from the third album, “To All Living Things,” go toward the Wash Project, an initiative that Martin started after traveling to West Africa with doctors from Medical Missions Foundation in Lenexa.

“I asked the doctors how I could help, and they said, ‘If you could find a way to encourage communities to wash hands, that would be half the battle,’” Martin recalled.

So he set up the project, which has taught that simple life-saving practice to 7,000 children in Mali. The project purchases soap from a women’s soap-making cooperative that the initiative also launched. Many of the women in the cooperative are earning an income for the first time in their lives.

“I spend a lot of my days creating space for impoverished children to have a more dignified life and providing them with resources to break the cycle of poverty,” said Martin, who also works full time for Unbound, a charity in Kansas City, Kan., that helps low-income kids overseas stay in school, offers micro loans for small businesses and pays for medical care and housing for older people.

“It’s beautiful work and I’m honored to do it,” Martin said.

If you’re looking for something to celebrate Hanukkah with, check out the compilation CD “A Jewish Celebration” by Putumayo World Music. It celebrates the holiday with music ranging from reggae and ska to tango and folk. One song, “Le chaim!” includes a matzo ball recipe. Putumayo has contributed more than $1 million to nonprofits around the world since 1993.

This story was originally published November 21, 2014 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Albums by KC’s Snow Globes and others benefit local, international causes."