Local bands rocked out acoustic-style Saturday night in a benefit concert at Muse Music.

The concert, promoting the fledgling non-profit organization "The Cause for Education," drew a large crowd and featured a variety of talent and musical styles including groups Goodbye Nova, Season's Extreme, Night Time Scene and The Foreground.

Owner of TurtleDove Promotions, a managerial organization for musical talent, and co-organizer for the event Ethan Dodge, said the concert was a great way to use the power of music to support a charitable organization.

"We have been looking for a cause to support and education is such an important aspect of helping people expand their future and save their country," said Dodge, a UVU student.

The Cause aims to provide educational benefits to impoverished children across the globe. UVU students and Cause founders Drew James and Jimmy McLaughlin said they believe in education's power to create a permanent change in peoples' lives.

"Building a house or giving someone food is wonderful, but they are temporary," James said. "Instead of giving them food, we want to teach them how to farm and provide for their own needs. Education then becomes something permanent."

The vision for the Cause came last year as friends gathered weekly to watch documentaries and discuss social issues.

"We kept saying that we wished we could do something to change things," James said. "But that was all we ever did - talk and wish. Then one day someone said that we should actually do something."

In considering the myriad issues to promote, James and McLaughlin decided that education was the key to solving many of the issues facing children.

"You might be hungry and impoverished, but with an education you can rise above that and go on to be active in your community, like in the fight against AIDS," James said.

The process to become a bona fide nonprofit organization has been lengthy, McLaughlin said, including "so much paperwork" and efforts to make people in their community aware that they are a nonprofit apart from the rest.

"We want people to know that we are not going to fade away in a few years like so many other nonprofit organizations," McLaughlin said.

The executive branch of the Cause mostly comprises recent graduates or current students, who collectively have traveled to over 70 countries in the world.

"We all have experience in travel and philanthropy that make us qualified to run this organization, despite out being younger," James said.

Experiences abroad helped leaders of the Cause form their vision for their organization.

"It is one thing to talk about issues and another entirely to go and see and smell and experience what poverty is," James said. "You see these kids that are smiling all the time, but they are stuck where they are forever."

James said giving to people who have no opportunities and few material assets is an important and lasting experience.

"When you see a mother and her kids and they are living in a hut with no sewer, no running water and no opportunities and you offer them anything, even something small like lunch, it makes such a difference to them," James said. "We got to buy these kids in Indonesia ice cream for their very first time and give them an experience they had never had before."

James and McLaughlin said they hope to involve members of the community from all levels to be able to participate in this giving process.

"We've started with the students, but are hoping to expand into all age groups and demographics in the community," James said.

The Cause is currently considering a project to construct a school in the Republic of Guinea in Africa.

"The government said that if we can raise the money to build the school, they will staff it," James said.

Cause leaders said they hope for expansive growth in upcoming years, planning to construct five schools in five years and expand to a following of 100,000 via Facebook and MySpace.

"In five years we want to be a well-known, national organization that helps people attain their goal of education wherever we can get in," McLaughlin said.

For more information regarding the Cause, go to www.causeforeducation.org

Copyright Brigham Young University 11 Nov 2008