Al LePage as "Ebeneezer Scrooge"     Photo Credit: David Krapes   

"What in the Dickens am I doing?" asks performer Al LePage.  "Three things.  First, I'm doing a one-man show of A Christmas Carol where I will create some 26  characters! From Scrooge to Tiny Tim, from Marley's Ghost to Mrs. Cratchit, there's howls and growls, bangs and bongs, a dance with a song, some lively laughter and heartfelt tears.  Next, I'm donating my time and talents to share the messages of this classic holiday story and to prevent hunger locally where I live, so that every cent of ticket sales can be used by FOOD For Lane County to buy food.  Finally, I'm recreating history since I'll be doing the show in the style of Dickens, creating all the characters by simply using my voice, gestures, and movements as a dramatic reading performance.  The text is also pure Dickens in that it uses the famed author's own historic script, too!"

But there's also a personal story about LePage and why he does so many of his shows to benefit hunger organizations.  As a young man the school he'd been working at as a teacher unexpectedly closed down for good over the winter holiday break, and through no fault of his own found himself -- along with all the other teachers -- without a job, without a paycheck.  His savings were meager, and deciding not to go on unemployment at the time, struggled to make ends meet.  He paid his bills but had little money left over for food.  So, he got hungry for the first time in his life.  He was not starving, of course, but he remembers it being winter and spring, feeling cold and hungry, and figures he may even have been slightly malnourished as time went on, too. That experience has stuck with him ever since, and that's why his primary focus is to donate 100% of all proceeds from his shows to organizations that help prevent hunger close to home.  Since he's now a resident of Eugene, he wants to completely donate this show without taking his standard performance fee or cover his expenses to help the hungry close to home.

"The need for food in our community is extremely large," begins Beverlee Potter, executive director of FOOD For Lane County, "it's 40%, and that means we're helping to feed between 70 to 80 thousand people each year in Lane County.  Many people only come several times a year, which means they need to take home non-perishable food, and we're typically very short on this kind of shelf-stable food."

Hunger close to home has been and continues to be a serious issue both locally and nationally.  At any given time, people sometimes have to make choices between food and other critical survival factors such as heat, housing, medical care or transportation.  In Oregon alone over 210,000 children are effected, that's just over 1 in every 3  people facing hunger within the state are children, and it's estimated that nearly 26% don't qualify for government programs like food stamps or free school lunches simply because they earn too much money.  All that's based on the specific Oregon estimates of Map the Meal Gap, the most recent 2016 report (2014 data) published by the national network of food banks, Feeding America. One of their past reports has also noted that children who don't eat what they need for strong healthy brain development may never recover their lost potential for cognitive growth.  It also had gone on to note that besides stunting their intellectual capacity, it could also affect learning, social interaction and productivity, diminishing what could have been a child's eventual contributions to society.   And according to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) report just released this September 2016, Household Food Security in the United States in 2015, an "estimated 12.7 percent of American households (that's over one in seven) were food insecure at least some time during the year in 2015, meaning they lacked access to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members." The report's summary also noted, though, that "the estimated percentage of U.S. households that were food insecure in 2015 declined" by 1.1 percent of the 2014 estimate.

"The Christmas Carol story get's people in the spirit to be generous," adds Potter, "and people are always looking for something meaningful to do during the holidays.  When you come to this event where all funds raised will be used to buy shelf-stable food, then you'll also actually be coming to help feed our community.

"One last thing," asks LePage, 'Please, sir, I want some more.'  Yes, anyone who's ever read or seen Dickens story of Oliver Twist, knows the famous scene where little Oliver asks for more food, and that's what I'm aksing everyone to do, too!  So, besides buying a ticket, could you also do some more, could you please, sir or madam, also bring a special food item to donate, too?  One of my favorites is peanut butter and it's a great food to store on a pantry shelf."

FOOD For Lane County gets a lot of donations during the holiday season, but things drop off during January and February, so supplies get low during the new year.  They need to prepare now for this annual shortfall by stocking up on non-perishable food in jars, bags and cans.   Protein is one of the most important things your body needs to function well, so also donating a jar of peanut butter is a good choice.

  ". . . and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!"
   Photo Credit: David Krapes  LePage as "Ebeneezer Scrooge"
LePage, a resident of Eugene, Oregon, began bringing history to life through improvised portrayals of real people from the past for over seven years at historic sites, museums, and other venues throughout the Pacific Northwest. He's written and produced his own historical dramas as one-man shows, and appeared on the nationally televised PBS “History Detectives” series in roles ranging from a bartender to Robert E. Lee.  Oregon Public Broadcasting Radio produced and premiered LePage's own shortened version of Dickens' Christmas Carol as his own one man one-hour radio program in 2010, airing it each year since and just before Christmas Day.  He's been giving performances of the Carol to benefit charity in the United States, Canada and England since 2006.  In 2011 he traveled to England to perform there for the very first time beginning in the same place and for the same charity that Dickens himself did his own first public reading of the Carol in Birmingham in 1853, and LePage's last performance while in England that year was in the renovated old stables of the historic 16th-century coaching inn in Framlingham, England itself, the very same town after which Framingham, MA, the town he was born, was so named.


FOOD For Lane County is a nonprofit food bank founded in 1984 and is dedicated to eliminating hunger by creating access to food.  They accomplish this by soliciting, collecting, rescuing, growing, preparing and packaging food for distribution through a network of more than 150 social service agencies and programs; through public awareness, education and community advocacy; and through programs designed to improve the ability of low-income individuals to maintain an adequate supply of wholesome, nutritious food. These programs include emergency food boxes, meals on wheels, shelters, meal sites, rehabilitation facilities, nutrition education, gleaning and community gardens. They serve a diverse population of people living on limited incomes including children, families, seniors and single adults.  They distributed 8.1 million pounds of food through their 153 partner agencies in 2014-2015.  The largest program, the Emergency Food Box program, served a total of 69,696 individuals in Lane County.  They also recruited, trained and mobilized thousands of community volunteers who donated over 74,000 hours in 2015.  Visit their webiste at FOOD For Lane County or call (541) 343-2822 to learn more,  volunteer, or donate funds to help prevent hunger.


NOTE TO MEDIA:  With the exception of the "food image" above, all other embedded images are high resolution and offered for free use by the print and online media for stories related to these performances and may be cropped and color-balanced as needed.
Please credit "David Krapes" for each one, except the image provided by FOOD For Lane County.

CAPTION SUGGESTION for IMAGES without captions:  Performer Al LePage is sure to bring lots of  laughter, and hopefully some tears, during his upcoming dramatic reading performances of Dickens' classic A Christmas Carol.