Spirituality and music melded into a richly diverse evening of entertainment Saturday night at the South Rome’s Boys & Girls Club.

The Grassroots Empowerment Alliance of Rome partnered with Shorter College this year for GEAR’s second annual cultural celebration.

The Mountain Top Experience Djembe group was one of the highlights of the night. A drum team with an age range from 2 to 62, incorporated dance, song and African djembe drums in its performance.

Starting with one drum and slowly increasing one at a time, the group produced a thunderous sound within the gym, and just as the crowd was completely involved with the beat, they all stopped in unison.

Linda Smith, leader of the drummers, said that after a mission trip to Africa, the group wanted to incorporate drumming as a part of their mission in Rome. “So, we formed a drum team.”

Other music included Christian rock band In Pursuit, gospel, blues, R&B and performers of all types.

“We started it last year,” said Janice Morrissey, executive director of GEAR. “The purpose is to bring all the different people we work with together to bring all our cultures together and show the richness of our backgrounds and experiences.”

Morrissey explained that this year’s event took on the theme of music and spirituality in cultural expression after GEAR partnered with Shorter, which was already working with a freshman seminar that was interviewing many local musicians for a class documentary.

“It’s (GEAR’s) event, but we’re helping with it. It’s been a great collaboration,” said Joan Ledbetter, career coordinator and part time teacher at Shorter. “It was a tremendous effort.”

Ledbetter explained that all the musicians her class found were put together with all of the musicians GEAR had, and the event came together nicely.

“The whole purpose of the event is really to show the diversity of Rome and to let people in Rome know that GEAR works with a diverse group of people,” Morrissey said.