Kim and Stephanie, along with friends, founded the Anderson Family Fund last year to raise money for patients of the Burn Center. Last weekend they staged the second annual Healin’ With a Feelin’ fundraising concert at The ArtsCenter. The inaugural concert last year pulled in more than $12,000, which went to buy sun-protection clothing, compression gloves and other protective and recovery items for Burn Center patients who can’t afford such supplies.

The Andersons have a personal reason for wanting to support the demanding and important work the Burn Center does. On March 10, 2010, their kitchen caught fire. Stephanie was out of town. The children, Drew and Emma, made it outside. Kim tried to put out the blaze; the last thing he remembers is grabbing a pan and feeling it burn his hand.

Drew pulled him out of the house, and emergency crews rushed him to the Burn Center. He stayed there for almost five months. He suffered second- and third-degree burns so severe that the doctors kept him in a medically induced coma for two months to regulate his fluids and slowly, carefully bring him back. He lost a finger on his right hand, and he has endured five skin graft surgeries.

Kim and Stephanie established the fund as a way to express their thanks, appreciation and admiration for the work the Burn Center staff does. Kim knows that many patients don’t have access to the insurance and resources he was able to lean on; the fundraiser he has established gives those folk a generous helping hand.

Roses to the State Employees Credit Union Foundation and its members, who recently provided $140,000 to the North Carolina Symphony to pay for a new 28-foot insulated vehicle.

The vehicle will allow the symphony to transport its instruments from one end of the state to the other in a safe, temperature- and humidity-controlled environment, essential to maintain the instruments in good condition.

The funding will help the symphony continue its long and proud tradition of taking music to the people of North Carolina. The symphony performs more than half of its approximately 175 concerts each year outside the Triangle; the symphony travels more than 12,000 miles each year to perform concerts not only in concert halls but in auditoriums, school gyms and outdoor venues. Among other things, the symphony presents some 40 full-orchestra “Education Concerts” for elementary schoolt students.

The traveling component of the symphony has been a part of its mission ever since it was founded in Chapel Hill in 1932, and under the leadership of longtime director Benjamin Swalin, the symphony reached into every corner of the state and added the educational focus to its goals.

The symphony is now based in Raleigh, but it belongs to all North Carolinians, and we’re happy that it is continuing to take its music on the road.