The Song Fight Bulletin Board

“Giving Tuesday” is a pretty new thing I think, and is supposed to be a counterpoint to Black Friday/Cyber Monday consumerism.

My friend Meena (a super talented tabla player who played on the Bangles’ last album!) helped establish the Elijah McClain Scholarship Fund as part of the Harmony Project, which supports music education in under-resourced communities in LA. Just throwing it out there as one possibility for a place to donate today, if you’re looking for one!

A couple of other music-related nonprofit ideas:

Your local chapter of Girls Rock Camp. I’ve played fundraisers for different chapters of this, it’s an awesome “school of rock” type summer camp for girls and NB kids. The Fox Cities chapter was fully funded for participants so any kid who was interested could attend for free. (Not sure of the status of this nonprofit in the pandemic though...)

Sing Me a Story. Fundraiser for various other nonprofits—kids write stories, musicians make a song about a story, and then raise money for the organization pledge-style. My band recorded a song for this for our local chapter of Gilda’s Club, a cancer support organization.

Any other favorites anyone wants to suggest? Generally I like doing charitable donations at Christmas instead of physical presents, so I have plans for more donations soon.

I just gave to a few charitable organizations that I try to support. The most musical is The Bay Bridged: https://us.commitchange.com/ca/san-fran ... ay-bridged

I also gave to the Alameda County Food Bank and Golden Thread Productions.

It's no longer Tuesday, but through 12/31 Mario Lemieux (Le Magnifique!) will match dollar for dollar all donations up to $500,000 made to The Mario Lemieux Foundation which supports Cancer and other disorders, hospitals and research centers as well as supporting hospitals for sick children. You can see it here: https://mariolemieux.org/2020-holiday-g ... rio-match/ You can also add them as your Smile.Amazon charity (you all do shop through Smile when making Amazon purchases, don't you?) Also... Go Pens!

Is there time before Wild Wednesday?

If we're talking music charities, I have one.

My friend is the founder MusiConnects, whose mission is "To model and teach self-expression, peer leadership and community development through the transformative power of chamber music." They embed musicians at schools in underprivileged communities in Boston, teaching violin, viola and cello and giving performances for free. It's pretty great.

My Amazon Smile charity is Arrowbear Music Camp, which I attended for a few formative summers during highschool. I can't say enough positive things about Arrowbear. I would like to remind everyone that Ross Durand was a counselor there when I first started attending. His signature trick was to put coins up his nose and brag about how much money was up there.

Arrowbear Music Associates
Location: Lakewood, CA
Mission: To Raise Funds For The Provision Of Music Scholarships