Veteran New Orleans rock band Better Than Ezra will host the twelfth annual Ezra Open charity event on April 12, 2014 at House of Blues New Orleans. This year’s event will feature a Casino Night Patron Party followed by a live auction and benefit concert featuring JT Hodges, Matt Nathanson, and Better Than Ezra.

The Casino Night Patron Party in the Foundation Room of the House of Blues will feature casino game favorites, a ticket to the benefit concert, premium food, an open bar, a complimentary photo with Better Than Ezra, a raffle, and a silent auction.

The Ezra Open started out as a golf tournament and has taken on several different incarnations as it has raised over $1 million over the past dozen years, but the overall effort has always been to help the city of New Orleans thrive, Better Than Ezra bass player and founding member Tom Drummond said.

The foundation’s current focus is on Mary McLeod Bethune Elementary School in New Orleans, which the band has adopted.

Tom Drummond, Kevin Griffin, and Michael Jerome of Better Than Ezra.

“The long term goal is to get a better situation for some of these kids and the school,” Drummond said. “I personally have a strong belief that in order for change to happen, it really needs to start with the youth and the school system.”

Drummond said approximately 100 children are currently enrolled in an after school program administered by Young Audiences that the band sponsors at Bethune, where many of the students come from disadvantaged households.

“Bethune is awesome,” he said. “The staff and the principal there do an awesome job, and that’s half the reason we felt like we could get involved with this. We felt like whatever effort we put into this was going to make a real difference.”

As a father himself, Drummond said he sees how important stability is for a young child’s development. Providing help to working parents in the form of an afterschool program that takes care of students until the parents can get off of work seems like the best way to do that, Drummond said.

“We can actually see a change with the kids, right now. We can actually see it happening,” he said. “The principal told me they have two kids right now who probably wouldn’t be there if our afterschool program was not in place. That’s a big deal.”

Other organizations that have benefited from the Better Than Ezra Foundation’s fundraising include the Preservation Resource Center to renovate and rebuild a first responder’s flooded home from Katrina, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts to aid the Summer Program for students, Brad Pitt’s Make it Right Foundation to help rebuild homes in the Lower 9th Ward neighborhood, the Audubon Nature Institute to build the Cool Zoo Splash Park at Audubon Zoo, the Louisiana SPCA, CrimeStoppers, and the ALS/Gleason Initiative.

Tickets to the Ezra Open’s Casino Night Patron Party and Benefit Concert are available to purchase at the following link: http://www.houseofblues.com/tickets/eventdetail.asp?eventid=86657&live=1

For more information on the Twelfth Annual Ezra Open charity event, the Better Than Ezra Foundation, or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities, visit: www.btefoundation.org.