By Kerri Pepoy,Staff Writer

PARIS – Christmas music will soar at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School on Dec. 2, when the sixth annual Christmas for Teens fund-raising concert will be held to help underprivileged area teens and their families have a brighter holiday.

Christmas for Teens is a volunteer Right Start program, which purchases Christmas gifts for low-income SAD 17 teenagers. The concert, which is the largest fund-raiser for Christmas for Teens, represents a significant volunteer effort by residents throughout the Oxford Hills region.

An all-volunteer community choir of about 60 Oxford Hills residents will perform at the event, along with Drama Club students from the high school, groups of other choral performers and dance teams, said Cynthia Wescott, the concert’s producer.

Wescott was formerly choral director at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School.

“The (community) choir includes individuals in sixth grade right up through age 67,” Wescott said in a recent interview. “All of the music is Christmas music; that’s a requirement from me.”

Last year, the sold-out concert raised more than $4,000 to benefit 140 low-income and homeless teens in the Oxford Hills community.

Teens must meet certain economic guidelines and be full-time students at Oxford Hills Middle School or Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School to qualify for help under the Christmas for Teens program, said Jean Delamater, co-coordinator of Christmas for Teens. They also must be 13 to 18 years old.

Volunteers from Christmas for Teens shop every year for items for the eligible teens. Delamater said teens request gifts of clothes, personal care items, compact discs, books and games. “We spend an average of $50 per teen,” she said.

About 25 of the teens who were helped last year qualified as homeless because they didn’t have permanent homes but stayed with friends instead, sometimes moving among several different residences, she said.

Many teens are referred to Christmas for Teens by teachers, outreach workers or guidance counselors. An application form verifies full-time enrollment in either the middle school or the high school, as well as low-income status.

Doors will open at 7 and the concert begins at 7:30. Some tickets will be sold at the door if they do not sell out before the concert, Wescott said.

Tickets are available from chorus members, at Books-N-Things in Oxford and at the music department at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School. The cost is $8 for general admission and $6 for students through grade 12 and seniors 62 and older.