Abracadabra

Inspirational magicians host fund raiser in Warwick on May 14 Warwick - Magicians Without Borders will bring their inspirational magic show to Stone Bridge Station in Warwick on Friday evening, May 14, at 7:30. This non-profit group of magicians and theater teachers perform magic shows for children in refugee camps, orphanages and hospitals around the world -often in war torn places where love, laughter and magic are desperately needed. Tom Verner, founded Magicians Without Borders in 2001 while performing magic shows in the refugee camps of Kosovo and Macedonia. Since that first trip in 2001, Verner and his wife, Janet, (a visual artist and teacher, performing as a mime and clown in the shows), have taken six trips a year. They have traveled to Ethiopia numerous times, Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, Somalia, India, Bangladesh, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia Croatia, Ukraine and Haiti. They performed for a month in Thailand and Burma after the Tsunami and traveled through Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina. The Verners, along with other magicians and theater teachers, travel to El Salvador every three months where they perform for children in the countryside and are teaching magic and theater skills to a group of very poor teenagers. Magicians Without Borders sponsors a week long magic, theater and art camp for these children who live in poverty surrounded by gang violence. “I like to think that the magic brings not only laughter and surprise, but on some deeper level perhaps, magic plants seeds of hope,” Verner said. “Hope that the impossible is possible. Hope that after years of waiting in a refugee camps, the waiting will end and the people will go home again.”

If you go
• Magicians Without Borders
When: Friday, May 14, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Stone Bridge Station 30 Wisner Road, Warwick
How much: $10 admission $5 children twelve and under; tickets may be purchased at Newhard’s, 39 Main St., Warwick.
Call: 845-258-5518

To find out more
Magicians Without Borders is a 501(c)3 non-profit and is supported solely by individual donations. For more information visit the Web site at www.magicianswithoutborders.org.