Justin Roth to play in Morton Grove for Food Pantry benefit

I'm very excited to announce that nationally touring singer/songwriter and virtuoso guitar player Justin Roth is collaborating with me to raise money for our the NIles Township Food Pantry! Whee! This is the sweet spot where self-interest and poverty-fighting cross over! :) I love this musician and can't wait to see him play up close and in my friend's living room. Go now and hear him at his myspace page!!! NOW!!! www.myspace.com/justinrothmusic

OK, babbling excitement-time is over. Back to blog. Because it's a private house party, we're doing invitation only, so I won't post all the details here. But, in case this can inspire others to do this kind of event, this is the gist. Hedy (my friend with a much bigger living room than I have) and I have invited Justin to play a house concert in her living room. He discounted his usual performance fee so we can charge $15 per person and have 50% go to our food pantry. We need a minimum of 30 people to make that work for him, so our cause will get at least $225 for the night! We're doing a very low-key, BYOB event and will just provide some light appetizers and soft drinks. Folks will sit around informally on her sofas and on the floor. If you do this, expect to invite about 100 people to make that number and ask them to consider donating even if they can't make the event. Many people have expressed interest in sending $ anyway and even asked to make food donations as well. Don't forget to send a little press release to your local paper to build more awareness about the cause. I'm even going to send one to our NPR affiliate here because the concert would make such a great sound-bite. Justin was savvy enough to mention that I should offer up the "house concert as cultural phenomenon" angle in case I'm talking to someone who doesn't want to cover poverty at the moment.

I think this could be a start of something great. Already people are asking me if I can make this a house concert series! I'm sailing over the moon at that prospect, but....one thing at a time, yeh?