Donations going to food bank to help out Calgary flood victims
Dallin Ursenbach, Fridge Relief organizer and member of the Hex Rays.
In times like these, it’s hard to know just how to conduct oneself. Yesterday I was at Caffe Beano in the morning, ready to go and lend a hand to a homeowner down by the river, when a woman came in brandishing a tennis racquet.
Any spin doctor would tell you this was a case of bad “optics.” When people around you may well be fighting to save their homes, it’s one thing not to help out, but quite another to seem to be indifferent to their suffering.
In other words, leave the racquet in the car, sweetheart, and you’ll make a lot more friends.
In the same vein, there is a feeble debate not quite raging about whether the Stampede should go on this year. Well, there are people who probably think it should never be held in the first place, you know, those cringing hand-wringers who get intensely uncomfortable when they see anyone having a really good time.
Maybe it’s just me, but in my mind it seems quite clear that if ever we needed the Stampede and all the madness that it encompasses, it’s now more than ever before.
On Facebook today, my friend Michelle Pearson wrote what I think is a brilliant piece on the need for this year’s Stampede, and has given me permission to share it here:
Stampede is not about corporate greed or commercialism, it’s about jobs . . . It’s about people who need to make money to survive – even before this flood that just made surviving (much less thriving) even more difficult. It’s about artists who wait all year to sell paintings, musicians and their crews who make the lion’s share of their year’s income, it’s about the cowboy who puts himself at risk to pay for failing crops (and has now lost most of his cattle much less all of his yield), it’s the cleaners, food trucks, small artisans who risk their money on that little booth.
That’s just on site – it’s also about the $170 million of revenue throughout the city that many companies need now more than ever – especially the family-run little guy or the company that just feels like it’s family! It’s about marketing this city to an audience that comes from around the world, often buying tickets more than a year in advance, as well as hotels and meals – and then telling 20 friends back home who then visit our city another time.
Some people will need this event to happen now more than ever just to put food on the table. And for some, they will need this party to celebrate survival. It cannot be deferred to another date – it doesn’t work like that. For whatever reason people NEED the Stampede. I hope we can pitch in and make this happen – come Hell or High Water!
I couldn’t agree more with Michelle, but I understand that one wants to be prudent and not disrespectful to those who are going through difficult times. And so, when some young musicians in town envisioned a mini-music festival this week – in fact, Wednesday of this week – they didn’t know whether to go ahead with it or not because they didn’t want to seem shamefully opportunistic and indulgent at such a difficult time in many people’s lives.
But they struck a fine balance, I believe, in deciding to go forward with the event and to make it a fundraiser for the Calgary Food Bank.
Fittingly, the event is called Fridge Relief, so named because one of the organizers lost a fridge full of food in the recent (in some cases current) power outage. It is the sincere hope of the organizers that no matter what kind of stress you have going on in your life right now, this will be an opportunity to hear some great music, relieve the pressure, and who knows, maybe even have some fun.
Fridge Relief takes place Wednesday, June 26 at the Hillhurst/Sunnyside Community Centre in conjunction with the Calgary Farmer’s Market, beginning at 3:00 p.m. If the weather gods are in a good mood, much of it may even happen outside, but if it rains, and why wouldn’t it, they can move it inside the centre.
Bands/performers on the lineup include:
Labcoast
Ghost Keeper (formerly known as Children of the Great Northern Muskeg)
Chis Ellestad
Hex Ray
Knots
Feel Alright
Cousins
Admission is by donation, all of which will be given to the Calgary Food Bank to help Calgary flood victims.
These are all local musicians, some of whom were scheduled for Sled Island this year, with the exception of Cousins who come from Nova Scotia and are en route to a gig in The Yukon.
So whether it’s the Stampede or Fridge Relief, life goes on, and hopefully we can all find the balance between attending to the matters at hand and looking out for one another, while still taking advantage of the wonderful entertainment Calgary has to offer in the summer.
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