It was winter break 2005 and I had just came back from college.  Just 2 months before this, the news had came through the phone line to our dorm room that my best friend/roommate’s sister was diagnosed with Cancer.  It was that moment, that word, that brought about all the thoughts and prayers one could imagine into that small box of a room.  All you can do is sit and wonder about life, dreams, and all the other things you were planning for the future.  It is this moment you realize that all the other “things” about life don’t really matter all that much.  “Things can be replaced.”

This project, “Songs 4 St. Jude” came from a personal request from my roommate’s sister to play a song for her on Christmas.  Little did I know that the song, “Skin” by Rascal Flatts is about a young girl with cancer and I also didn’t know how to play piano.  I had a week and a half until this day.  A week and a half to learn Piano, Skin, and play it at our Christmas gathering.  Let’s say it was the best, most difficult, inspiring feeling that I have ever experienced and to this day gives me goosebumps thinking about that moment when I played the song for our families.  (Here’s a picture of that day, before the song)

It was that story, that girl, that inspiration, that makes me start this project.  The live shows are just a way to let people know what I plan to do while helping to support St. Jude at the same time.  My goal is to head to St. Jude and write songs with the kids that we can then record, sell, and hopefully play live with the children someday.  While this will raise money for the families and the hospital, it can be a lot more of an intrinsic motivator to help children fight this disease.  I do this because I still have a true family friend around and can say that a big part of this is credited to St. Jude.

PROJECT IDEA

Here’s the deal… I want to go to St. Jude… In the meantime I am going to raise money with online concerts/shows…. Read below

Hopefully soon I want to go to St. Jude and help kids with cancer stay strong by showing them that they can write songs, create music, and sell the songs they write, then together we can help both the children and St. Jude.  I can show each child that if they can write a song, then I can help them see the bigger dream that they can do anything.  This is a project inspired from being personally affected by this terrible disease.  This project goes out to Michelle Roberts.

UPDATE:

THANK YOU EVERYONE!  WE RAISED OVER $400 in 30 minutes for St. Jude!