Andy Board, the successful donor who had bid 2,000 yuan ($288.3) to the 7th Zhuhai Come Together Charity Music Festival, smashed a cake in Mark Clayton's face as onlookers screamed and laughed.

Andy Board decorates Mark Clayton's face

It was a scene of the Charity Music Festival, which opened at 3 pm on Nov 17 at the LETS Cultural District's Live House in Qianshan. Organized by the CTC (Zhuhai Western and Chinese Love & Music Exchange Center) to raise funds for local charities LJL (Lanjing Ling) and ZAS (Zhuhai Autism Society), the music festival is held annually to "give back something to the community which has been so kind to us," according to co-founder Mark Clayton.

Participants socialize

The Solo Artist Battle, Chuiballtong, The Celtics, Mercader, Dr Eggs, and The Spooge Wahz, and Monsoon, all performed free of charge. The High Rollers once again headlined the event with lead singer and guitarist Dr Billy Chan, who is a founding member of Come Together.

Lets Cultural District donated the venue and the catering providers pledged to donate half of their revenue on the day to CTC. InternChina Bar contributed all their takings to charity while ZIS and QSI arranged Lego bricks, face paintings, and other activities for kids. Meanwhile, volunteers helped with the raffles, donation boxes and merchandize stands while expats and Chinese alike enjoyed the live music, socializing, playing games, or tasting delicacies and drinking beer.

Live performance

In the meantime, LJL and ZAS set up stalls to sell self-painted T-shirts, mouse pads, cup mats, masks, hand-made candies, and other handicrafts made by autistic children.

A large part of the CTC donation goes to recruit professionals for autistic kids and learning sessions such as football, basketball, dragon and lion dances, bakery and parent support, which has immensely helped them merge into mainstream schools and normal life, said Ms Liu Mingjie, who works at LJL and has an autistic son.

Handcrafted goods by autistic children on sale

He Bingling, president of ZAS, showed appreciation to CTC for having aroused public concerns to local autism through the charity music festival over the past few years. The donation also covered expenses of Project Robot, in which kids learn to create robots by programming and packaging components; and roller skating.

The most fruitful part of the donation, in He's opinion, however, is the opening of Post-School Caring Center, where the children can stay after school until their parents pick them up after work. It has contributed a lot of relief for parents, who had to stay at home so they could take their kids back from school in the mid-afternoon. This, the CTC organizers may have not expected, would help the kids to have quality attendance and the parents to earn a better living, He pointed out.

Last year's event recorded nearly 1,000 participants, raising a grand total of 255,555 yuan ($36,841) for local charities, CTC reported.