In May 2006 two ladies sat down over a cup of coffee to talk about Bono (U2) and how his work with the One Campaign and Global Fund had inspired them both to want to ‘do’ something to help people in Africa.
But what to do? How to make a difference? We came up with a WILD idea!
We worked with Sam Roberts a few years back when he did his first Comfort Doll photo with us, and found him to be a very generous person who is always giving back. We asked him and his manager, if they’d be willing to do another such photo, this time with the entire band, and they all said yes almost immediately. We sent a comfort doll in the mail, and the comfort doll went out on tour with the band! (thanks for the cool pic guys!)
As the band traveled though, they suddenly were without their usual bass player, James Hall, due to an unexpected hand infection that was pretty serious (the band posted about it on Facebook). Thankfully James was okay after a month or so, and was able to rejoin the band.
Once James was back on tour, we were sent this great shot of Sam and the guys (Eric Fares, Dave Nugent, James Hall, Sam, Josh Trager), standing out beside their tour bus. (Thanks to their tour manager D, for the photos!)
Their management also sent us some cool band swag – a Collider tshirt, and a Collider cd – both autographed by the entire band, and they signed the card we sent with the comfort doll. We combined all the items into one ‘lot’ and included it with the items from another great group of people – State of Shock.
State of Shock is also a band we’ve worked with in the past – and are very generous about finding ways to give back as often as they can. We asked, they said yes, and we had an opportunity to take the band’s photo when they came to a town near us for a show.
Johnny, Jesse, Cameron, Alley, and Kadooh were fabulous – they gave us a pair of Johnny’s chewed up drum sticks, autographed a huge poster of the band for us and each guitar player donated a custom guitar pick for the auction package.
Cameron was given the doll to keep and put it in his backpack so it wouldnt get lost, then went back and pulled the doll out far enough for it’s head to stick out.. saying he felt odd having it not being able to see 
Took a picture of it.
Once all the items were auctioned off, and we had the proceeds figured out, we were able to ‘purchase’ the following items at the World Vision Gift Catalog
2 mosquito nets which will protect up to 8 children total
Emergency food for a family for 30 days
Enough medicines for up to 10 kids
and 3 soccer balls – we wanted to include something fun as well as life saving, as the bands we worked with all have great senses of humor and are fun to be around. Thanks so much to both bands involved as well as their mgmt people. It was great to work with both bands for a second time!
(This is a continuation of the previous post Collective Soul Pt 1- Feb 1/08 – the next night)
The comfort doll photo with the band was done and in hand, the band had the doll (almost no thanks to my forgetfulness) and during the show, Joel had tossed a guitar pick out and it had literally landed on my shirt, so I added that into the auction package for later. I had also proofed the photo that night once I got home, and sent an email with a crazy idea to their lady manager -on a weekend- at nearly 10pm her time! But… with Blackberrys and iPhones, people collect their email on the go and she replied to it the next morning – Yes, my name would be on the list for that evening’s meet and greet session so I could have the photo autographed by the band!
That night I headed out to the Richmond near the Vancouver airport to the next venue on the band’s tour list. I always get lost in Richmond and the venue was a fairly new casino. I knew roughly where it was – in the daylight! I got so mixed up with direction – and with new construction for our overhead train system looking distinctly like freeway off ramps in the dark, it was maddening. I could ‘see’ the Casino at every turn but I couldn’t get across the short stretch of water to make it into the venue!
I love the smile on Ed's face!
By 2008 I was becoming more proficient with the internet, especially Myspace and after seeing that even someone as big as Tom Cochrane could indeed run his own Myspace page, I started to realize that what my friend Tina said was right – you already have a no answer (by not asking) so why not ask? All they can do is say no. (which you already have 
) So I started to make a Wish List of bands and musicians that I wanted for our project.
Collective Soul was top of that list. I had seen them in July 2007 at the Nakusp Music Fest – they were on stage just before Tom Cochrane.. and while I had been able to contact Tom for a comfort doll photo, I had not found contact info for Collective Soul at the time. I still couldnt find any contact info! So what to do? Well… I knew that their drummer and guitar player both had personal Myspace pages. So I sent them both a message outlining what our project was, how long it took, who we’d already done photos with and mentioned that the band was due to hit Vancouver early February. I asked the two fellows to pass my message on to the band’s management if they thought it was something the band would be interested in doing, and I got a reply from the guitar player in a few short days; He had indeed passed my info on to management.
A few days later, I had an email from Collective Soul’s management asking how to make this happen. I already had my own concert ticket to go see them (after seeing them in Nakusp I had to hear more!) so I replied that I only needed about 10 minutes of the band’s time before or after the soundcheck (our usual way of doing it). The management set me up to do it during the meet and greet that the band was going to be doing before the show, with their paid fan club members. I was excited and of course, being the eternal pessimist and procrastinator, I hadn’t knit a doll yet, so had to knit one in a hurry
