Cyril Neville holding up the drumsticks-as-art last March. Photo by Kim Welsh via Facebook.

Sticking Up For Children will hold its second Music & Arts Day at the Ashé Cultural Arts Center on Saturday, September 26.

The program invites children, parents and artists of all ages to decorate musicians’ used drumstick, turning them into artwork to be auctioned for the benefit children in need in Haiti and New Orleans.

New Orleans’ drummers Johnny Vidacovich and Alfred Roberts will play along with Alexey Marti of Cuba, Damas Louis of Haiti, and recent transplant from New York City, Cole Williams. Gaynielle Neville will also speak on her career as a musician, songwriter and activist.

Sticking Up For Children, initiated by Cyril Neville and his bandmates in the Royal Southern Brotherhood in 2013, sends its proceeds to the Foyer Espoir Pour les Enfants (FEPE) orphanage and Youpi Youpi school in Haiti, as well as the New Orleans Youth Sound Experience classes in sound-recording and the Kuumba Institute of the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in New Orleans.

Check out last year’s drumsticks, painted by the 7-15 year old children at the FEPE orphanage, in Aristide Philips’ video below.

The non-profit is supported by a wide array of artists and organizations, including Dr. John, Jimmy Cliff, Stanton Moore, Kidd Jordan, David Torkanowsky, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation and more. It has raised more than $60,000 through sale of drumsticks-as-art, grants and donations since its birth two years ago.

Saturday’s event in Central City is free and open to the public.