TOPSHAM – As a musician with close ties to his native country of South Africa, John Dennen keeps a close eye on that part of the world. Not surprisingly, the famine affecting millions of people in the Horn of Africa has been on his radar screen since last summer.

So in mid-December when the United Nations issued its “humanitarian appeal” to raise $1.5 billion worldwide to feed and shelter up to 4 million Somalis, Dennen decided to organize a benefit concert.

That event, featuring Mid-coast Maine songwriters and musicians, will take place at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, at the Orion Performing Arts Center at Mt. Ararat Middle School.

“It wasn’t a hard sell,” Dennen said of the response from several local Rotary clubs and Mt. Ararat High School’s Interact Club and National Honors Society, which have signed on as co-sponsors.

Featured musicians performing 20-minute sets include singer-songwriters Jud Caswell and David Bullard and a new group organized by Bullard, the SoundWaVz Jazz Band.

Dennen, who acquired his musical chops 45 years ago during South Africa’s apartheid era, will perform a set featuring “Memory Boxes,” a song he wrote for AIDS orphans in his native country.

“A lot of the music I write tends to be social commentary,” said Dennen, who is still lining up musicians for the Somali relief benefit concert.

The International Rotary Foundation initiated the “Horn of Africa Famine and Refugee Relief Fund” in response to the worst drought in 60 years that has gripped Somalia and its neighbors. More than 10 million people are affected in the drought-stricken countries, including 3.7 million who are at risk of starvation, according to a November announcement on the foundation’s website.

“There’s strength in numbers,” Dennen said, noting that all of the relief money raised by the benefit concert will be spent on food and other essential supplies for the Somali refugees. “Every $1,000 we raise will buy one metric ton of food; $1,000 will buy a lot of food in Africa.”

Concert tickets are $12 for adults, $6 for students and senior citizens. They will be available at Indrani’s in the Tontine Mall and Gulf of Maine Books in Brunswick, as well as at the door.