Who says kids today are apathetic? Not I, especially after talking to the crew at SOOTS -- the Sustaining Roots Music Community Project, a group of Raleigh Charter High School students who put on benefit concerts to help out the old-school blues players who need assistance. The students have shown impressive initiative in recent years, and they'll be putting on their fifth annual blues benefit concert Friday night. Read all about it here.

Congratulations to Raleigh Charter High School's Sustain Roots Music (SOOTS), which finished in the money in the Pepsi Refresh Projeject. Voting closed Monday in an online poll in which the top-10 vote-getters received $5,000 grants -- and SOOTS came in at No. 8. The money will help fund the benefit shows that the group puts on to raise money for Hillsborough-based Music Maker Relief Foundation, which assists older and impoverished blues musicians throughout the South.

We're down to the final day of voting for the Pepsi Refresh Project; and, as it stands right now, Raleigh Charter High School's Sustaining Roots Music (SOOTS) is in the money at No. 9. If SOOTS is still in the top-10 by the time voting ends, it will earn a $5,000 grant to go to the work that Music Maker Relief Foundation does, supporting older impoverished blues musicians. So on this Memorial Day, take a moment to vote one last time. Represent!

For the past few years, a group of Raleigh Charter High School students have put on fund-raising concerts through a community-service organization, Sustaining Roots Music (SOOTS). The money goes to the Hillsborough-based Music Maker Relief Foundation, which does wonderful work supporting older impoverished blues musicians.

The SOOTS crew is looking to augument its fund-raising through a contest sponspored by Pepsi, in which the top-10 vote-getters will each earn a $5,000 grant. Voting closes on the last day of the month; and at the time of this writing, SOOTS is in 15th place. So let's see if we can bump them up a little closer to the top-10. Vote early, vote often, vote here.