NEED Concert Raises $5,000 for Street Kids

Film Crew & Sound: Lisa Walker, Mark Hentges, Zach Nelson, Lance Lundstrom, Chase Hentges, Nate Peterson

NEED’s first-ever music event proved an event worth repeating. The concert brought together NEED readers, music lovers and 12 bands. This unique night of music yielded nearly $5,000 in donations to help street kids in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Although inclement weather resulted in a last-minute venue change from Peavey Plaza to Hell’s Kitchen in downtown Minneapolis, turnout and energy remained high. Undeterred, Twin Cities musicians performed back-to-back sets of acoustic and a cappella music. The Hell’s Kitchen staff was extremely accommodating in allowing all the musical acts onto their stage and housing the large crowd that attended.

The eclectic sounds of the evening ranged from the soulful vocals of Sounds of Blackness to Wookiefoot’s Mark Murphy’s quirky acoustics. Along with raising awareness and donations for street kids, the event provided a great opportunity for local musicians to get their music heard by a spirited audience.

Those who attended had a chance to pick up free copies of NEED magazine and to donate to the Nurani Insani School for Street Kids. To add to the atmosphere, children from Youth Performance Company dressed as street children. Following a bagpiper as he paraded around downtown, the children handed out flyers for the event and then milled around Hell’s Kitchen accepting donations in cups. Hell’s Kitchen served a beverage called “Jakarta River Water.” A portion of the drink’s sales were donated to the Nurani Insani school.



Online donations to the Nurani Insani school will be accepted until September 22.
>> more info about the event, the Nurani Insani school and how to donate

Please check back for upcoming events. We’d love to see you there!

Thank You! | Street Music for Street Kids

Billy Johnson. photo | Steve Floyd

The Street Music for Street Kids event on Thursday, August 20th was an amazing success. The one-night street music festival that was scheduled to be held outside at Peavey Plaza had to be moved inside due to substantial rain. The fantastic staff at Hell’s Kitchen were overly gracious in welcoming the entire event onto their stage and the large crowd into their seats. People were standing in the aisles, crowding booths, and sitting on any patch of space they could find on seats or on the stairs. The mass of people that braved the weather were rewarded with show like no other. Twelve great local bands put aside their amplifiers and electronics and played back-to-back sets of beautiful acoustic music. The event raised nearly $5000 in one night for a school helping to educate street kids in Jakarta, Indonesia.


Mark Murphy from Wookiefoot. photo | Steve Floyd

We at NEED are extremely grateful for the relentless support of so many who helped us put this event together from the city of Minneapolis, Peavey Plaza, Hell’s Kitchen, Lisa Walker and the film crew, and all the musicians who came out in support of street kids.

We have many more photos and video to come!


Sounds of Blackness. photo | Steve Floyd

If you can, go out and support these local musicians at their next shows here in the Twin Cities.

Sounds of Blackness – CD Release Party at the Mall of America Rotunda. Tuesday , August 25 6:30 pm Free and open to the public

Aby Wolf – Late Night at Barbette. Monday, August 31, 10:00 pm

Hyland – Benefit show at The Crossing. Saturday, August 29, 7:15 pm

Enchanted Ape – Downtime Bar. Friday, August 28, 9:30 pm. $5 cover

Billy Johnson – Crave. Thursday, August 27, 8:00 pm & – JJ’s Dry Dock Friday, August 28, 5:00

The Get-Rites – Acadia Café. Friday, September 12, 9:00 pm

Ada Jane – University of Duluth. Tuesday, November 17, 9:30 pm

Wookiefoot – Harvest Fest. Friday, September 11-Saturday, September 12

STREET MUSIC FOR STREET KIDS

photo | Bronson Enriquez

THU. August 20th 6:00 – 8:00 pm
Peavey Plaza 1111 Nicollet Mall, Downtown Minneapolis

Enjoy an evening of FREE music dedicated to helping street children.

Street Music for Street Kids is a unique and dynamic free event to raise support for the Nurani Insani School for Street Children and to raise awareness of street children around the world. A series of musical acts will perform a cappella and unplugged.



Featuring
Sounds of Blackness • Aby Wolf • Mighty Fairly • Wookiefoot's Mark Murphy • Innocent • Ada Jane • Semeron
and more.

Street Music for Street Kids is a unique and dynamic free event to raise support for the Nurani Insani School for Street Children and to raise awareness of street children around the world. A series of musical acts will perform a cappella and unplugged.



Street children in Jakarta, Indonesia beg using music to help support themselves and their families. The Nurani Insani Foundation School was started to educate the street children and break the cycle of poverty.

Donations will be accepted at the event and the afterparty, and through the microsite. Wookiefoot will be matching donations up to $2,000. 100% of all donations will go to the Nurani Insani School for Street Children.

Visit events calendar for details

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Music helps rescue girls from the sex trade

According to the US Department of State, between 10,000 and 15,000 Nepalese girls are trafficked into India every year as part of the sex trade. One American band, Wookiefoot, is doing something to change this.

Recently, this band contacted us at NEED to talk to us about the Project Earth music festival. At this festival, founded by Wookiefoot in 2006, 100 percent of the proceeds go to various charities.

NEED was able to connect Wookiefoot with four different organizations previously featured in the magazine, one of which was the Peace Rehabilitation Center (PRC) in Kathmandu, Nepal. PRC is an organization that rescues girls from the sex trade by patrolling the border between Nepal and India, working with police in both countries and teaching Nepalese communities to identify traffickers and protect their young women. Once these girls are rescued, PRC provides housing, health care and job training, and helps them reunite with their families if possible.

The money donated by Wookiefoot to PRC will allow border patrols to stay open and continue stopping the trafficking of young girls into India as well as help pay for girls rescued in India to go to safe houses near their homes in Nepal. For this small organization in impoverished Nepal, the cost of rescuing these girls and transporting them sometimes vast distances to safe houses can be overwhelming, and every donation allows them to free still more girls from bondage and keep others being forced into the sex trade.

To have a group of musicians call us up and ask how they could help was amazing. When we write these stories about small organizations giving everything they have to save lives, we tend to fall in love with those NGOs. Anytime someone tells us that they want to support these organizations, we are off-the-wall ecstatic. Thanks to Wookiefoot, we know that more girls will be saved and it makes us feel like everything we do to keep our publication going is worth it.

Along with its donation to PRC, Wookiefoot is giving proceeds from the previous Project Earth festival to the Rabondo Community Project in Kenya, The Miguel Angel Asturias Academy in Guatemala, and the Nurani Insani School for street children in Indonesia. The sold-out Project Earth 2009 festival begins this weekend, June 26-27, in Geneva, Minnesota. Wookiefoot looks forward to being able to expand their impact around the world by giving the proceeds from this year’s event to these and other charities.

We at NEED are fast becoming fans of Wookiefoot for their willingness to use their skills to aid humanity and leave their footprint on a better Earth.