Recently Bigg Vinny of Trailer Choir partnered with some friends to support Music With a Mission. The new initiative is designed to be a unique way for school districts and individual schools to help support arts programs like Band and Choir, programs constantly facing budgetary cuts. So, instead of selling pizza or calendars, Music With A Mission is designed to bring together national, regional and local musical and performing artists to perform at a conert that benefits the local school system.
To achieve this goal and to sell as many tickets as possible for the event, there is a grassroots connective foothold including a combination of student-driven sales, corporate partnering, social media and more.
Late last month (on April 19, 2014) the first Music With A Mission event happened in Quincy, Illinois. Thousands of supporters and Country music fans attend the concert at the Adams County Fairgrounds, where Colt Ford, Trailer Choir, Jared Blake, Kyle Grubb and Avenue Beat were the acts performing.
The energetic crowd was extremely exited to have such a production happen in their home town with the local Texaco Showdown winner Avenue Beat getting the party started. Jared Blake and Kyle Grubb followed before Trailer Choir kicked off their portion of the show with their energetic performance of hits like “Rockin’ The Beer Gut” and the performance of Bigg Vinny’s trademarked dancing moves to go along with Butter’s witty banter and comedy. All of this lead up to Colt Ford’s performance, something the crowd was eagerly anticipating and he once-again proved why he’s one of the nation’s biggest touring acts and why he’s built such a dedicated following with his Country rappin’ sound. The star performed over two hours and made sure everyone had a great time.
When asked about the genesis of Music With A Mission, Bigg Vinny said, "To this day, the high school I attended still does not have a music program. (There's) not even a choir. I believe it's a disservice to our children not to offer some form of musical education. That's why I created this program."
The first Music With A Mission show was made possible because of a very large donation from Per Wickstrom on behalf of his companies (Best Drug Rehabilitation Center and A Forever Recovery). Music With A Mission felt honored to be able to have the sponsors and Per Wickstrom himself see the value and the vision of what Music With A Mission is trying to accomplish. Per believes that there need to be extra activities for children to give them options they have to make with those options helping keep children out of harm and danger, which includes things like drugs and alcohol (Editor’s note: Growing up in rural America where options for doing things aren’t plentiful, this type of event is definitely needed to help keep the Arts and more viable to the community). Those drugs and alcohol addictions can and have ruined many lives simply because they seem to be the only options “available” to rural youth.
The first event in Adams County was a rousing success where tens of thousands of dollars was raised for the Schools and for Music With A Mission. Best of all, nobody left the show unsatisfied and it proved that people can and will donate money to a worthy cause like Music With A Mission. The best part is, instead of having cheaper food or unneeded candy or things, people get to experience a concert for their money. The event was so successful that they’re already in the process of working on repeating the event in 2015.
For more info on Music With A Mission and how you can bring a similar event to your town visit their website, their Facebook page or simply e-mail them here.
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