What
started as a simple, bare bones forum for finding information
on the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage
Festival (aka Jazz Fest)
in the mid ‘90’s, the official forum at www.nojazzfest.com has
evolved into a functioning online social community of friends
from all walks of life, united by a love of music, food and
all things New Orleans. In 2003 they adopted the name “Threadheads”.
Although
the Jazz Fest season runs for just 10 days every spring,
this evolving group of folks from
all over the world continue
to
participate on the forum year round. Online friendships have
become real world friendships. The group’s daily meet-ups at Jazz
Fest have grown from a few folks to several dozen each day and an
annual "days between" party (lovingly misspelled "Patry")
has become a highlight of the week. Outwardly, Threadheads are a
fun-lovin’, concert-goin’, booty shakin’, hard
partyin’, sometimes silly bunch… but the group has
a serious side, too.
After the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, the Threadheads were united
by a strong desire to help - to give something back to the city that
had brought them so much joy. Starting in 2006, the yearly Threadhead
Patry, originally conceived to give participants a way to meet face
to face, was turned into a fundraiser and the Threadhead
Charity Raffle, offering music and New Orleans-related
items as prizes, was organized. Forum participants supported
both efforts with their hearts and wallets and, as of 2008,
over $50,000 has been raised, benefiting both the New Orleans
Musicians Clinic and our own Fest4Kidz which, in turn, helps
support the Silence is Violence Youth Music Clinics.
During
the months that preceded the 2006 Fest, the Threadheads discovered
that one of the charity
beverage booths at Fest was
in trouble.
Lena Stewart was having problems finding enough volunteers to
staff the
Zulu Diamondcutters’ booth. Many of the members of the
Diamondcutters had been displaced by Katrina and it looked
like the group would
have to give up their largest annual fundraising opportunity.
But the Threadheads came to her rescue and, since 2006, have
organized
and volunteered en masse for Ms. Lena's Brigade. Over the past
3 years more than 150 volunteers, donating approximately 600
hours of their time, have made the booth possible allowing
the Diamondcutters
to continue their community service projects.
Additionally,
in 2006 another group of Threadheads were motivated to create
and organize FestAid,
an effort to ensure that
volunteers
could find opportunities to assist and support local charitable
organizations in their work to rebuild New Orleans. Focusing
on the days in between
the two weekends of Fest, FestAid resulted
in 205 people, most of whom were Threadheads, performing over
380 volunteer assignments.
Volunteers sorted and repackaged food donations at Second Harvest
of Greater New Orleans, cleaned out and demolished the interior
of
homes in St. Bernard Parish for Habitat for Humanity, began
building homes in the Musicians Village with Habitat for
Humanity, filled
feeding stations for displaced animals with Animal Rescue New
Orleans, picked up trash along city thoroughfares with Katrina
Krewe and
cleaned out and demolished the interiors of local musicians’ homes
with the Arabi Wrecking Krewe.
In the summer of 2007, Fest4Kidz was organized to raise money to
send the S-I-V Youth Music Clinic kids to fest for a day. By spring
2008 enough money had been donated by participants in the forum to
pay for the admission, food and transportation for each child (and
a chaperone) who wanted to attend. This Threadhead Give
Back Project has since grown to include helping to sponsor the clinics themselves
and collecting new and used instruments to give to kids that need
them.
The
most recent project to come out of this benevolent group
is Threadhead Records. This unprecedented
non-profit organization’s
goal is to help finance and publicize New Orleans musicians’ projects
through donations and loans. As of July 2008, two projects have been
completed. Paul Sanchez’ Exit to Mystery Street and John Boutté’s
Good Neighbor were the first cds to benefit from this group.
New projects by Shamarr Allen, Susan Cowsill, the New Orleans
Nightcrawlers
and the Marc Stone Band have been financed and are currently
in the works.
Because of their strong attachment to the people and culture of
New Orleans, this marvelous group of people continues to support
these projects, helping to ensure the heart of their beloved New
Orleans continues to beat.
“ Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world;
indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Meade
For more information on the various Threadhead
Give Back Projects,
please see the links at left.