300 Blankets presents Music for Blankets 2013

We kicked off the fundraising events in 2013 with a huge bang at Music for Blankets at Fashion Lounge. On the 23rd of March, the beautiful Melbourne afternoon was blaring with the awesome sounds of Melbourne musicians. Special guest, KrysRAW started the afternoon off in his DJ style of splicing crowd pleasing hits. The Keiths! and Atkinson Jones returned to the Music for Blankets stage with even more bite to fight for our cause. Our marketing manager – Julian Sheriff – even had a special cameo feature in a mash-up with Atkinson Jones. I have no doubt we will have a video of the collab up soon! New to our line up – The Peeks and The Angry Plant, gave our audience a new taste of what amazing Melbourne musicians have to offer. I have to thank these wonderful musicians for volunteering their time and amazing talent for our cause.

Through generously donated food from FareShare, Foodbank and 7 Day Bakery in Forest Hill, we held a BBQ at the back of Fashion Lounge. This allowed our guests to fill their tummys whilst chilling to the awesome music we had to offer.

My most memorable moment of the night was when guest speaker, Merewyn, Director of Stakeholder and Community Relations at Hanover Welfare Services, spoke to us about the seriousness of homelessness. She shared with us an amazing story about a man the Hanover team found experiencing homelessness. By providing crisis shelter and support, over time Hanover helped transform his life to eventually take on a role in helping others in similar circumstances. It is story like these that make the 300 Blankets team proud to have Hanover as a beneficiary.

I have to reaffirm the beauty of 300 Blankets community based events. To keep it community based, we have reached out to many people in all areas of Melbourne to help our events grow. I have to say thanks for the support of Fashion Lounge for donating the use of their wonderful venue, Billy Hyde Stage Systems for letting us use their equipment, our very entertaining MC comedian Mark Trenwith, all of the bands involved and all of the support volunteers that helped out to make Music for Blankets a success. 300 Blankets and Music for Blankets would not exist without the generosity of all volunteers and donors.

With all the right ingredients: music, raffle, food and a crowd to support our cause – Music for Blankets 2013 was a success! We raised enough to donate 480 blankets to people experiencing homelessness in Victoria! We will be leading a team with the Vinnies soup van soon to start fulfilling our mission in keeping our community warm.