On the road with Arcade Fire
A quick update on what I’ve been up the past two week: I’ve been working with Arcade Fire on joint project with Reverb and Partners in Health, greening the tour and running the fan engagement for PIH.
On the greening front, Reverb is coordinating backstage recycling, water stations and biodiesel fuelings. The band and crew were all given a reusable water bottle at the start of the tour, which they are then using to cut down on the amount of plastic water bottles being used each day.
I make sure there are ample water coolers or five gallon water containers with our cool little ‘dolphin pumps’ backstage and in dressing rooms for the crew each day, in addition to placing recycle containers throughout the backstage area, finding out what the venue recycles, and taking care of all advancing issues related to greening. We get biodiesel fuelings about twice as a week as well, fueling our trucks and buses with B20. The band has been really committed on this ‘green front’, even taking their reusable bottles on stage with them!
My afternoons and evenings are spent running an outreach program for Partners in Health, an organization I have long admired and am thrilled to be working with. Night after night we talk to fans about the work that PIH is doing and the relationship between the band and the organization, get fans to sign our ‘Stand with Haiti’ declaration, and take small donations to support the work that PIH is doing.
Each night is filled with incredible conversations with fans doing amazing things; people that have volunteered in Haiti, that work in global health, that work for local health organizations in their own towns, doctors that want to help PIH.
In New York at one of our Madison Square Garden shows we talked to a fan who had come in from Mexico City for the show, and really wanted to volunteer and help with PIH efforts where he lives. In Baltimore we met several people whom had just returned home from working in Haiti the previous six months. Our Philly show included a visit from several Haitian families that Partners in Health had placed locally for medical treatment following the earthquake - meeting the young, funny, smart, resilient little kids among them was a particular treat!
Doing engagement and organizing on a concert tour always reminds one of how much of the world is full of people silently doing their own thing to make things a little better, a little more just, and a little bit kinder. This tour has been remarkable on that front; night after night after night we get to hear incredible stories, and it feels great to know we are linking all of these amazing people together through the PIH community.
Our volunteers have been nothing short of amazing. Many of them have been students: high school students, college undergrads, grad students in public health, law, pre-med, and medicine leading efforts on their campus for both Partners in Health and other global health organizations, many inspired by the work of Paul Farmer and the story they read in Mountains Beyond Mountains.
They have come to us through student list serves, forwarded emails, Facebook and Twitter, and some have driven as much as three hours in each direction to join us. Our student volunteers in particular have been remarkable, I’m always so encouraged to hear about the efforts they leading on their campuses and in their communities, motivated by a strong sense of compassion and justice.
We have also been joined be a steady stream of volunteers that are no longer in school but are committed to the work that Partner’s in Health does and want to donate their time. All of our volunteers have worked incredibly hard, talking to thousands and thousands of people about the work of PIH, inspiring the Arcade Fire fan community about the work of PIH and the potential we have to forge a new future for Haiti and all of the developing world.
We wrapped up this short two week run in Toronto on Saturday night, where instead of Partners In Health, the set up was for Kanpe.
Kanpe is an organization that Regine Chassagne established with a close friend, and is focused on working in a very grassroots, one on one manner with Haitian families, linking them to the resources they need to end the cycle of poverty. Kanpe works to address health, nutrition, housing, education and financing/banking in part by partnering with organizations like Partners in Health and Fonkoze, helping families navigate the confusing stream of NGO resources available to them in their country to get what they need to literally ‘stand up’ and become self sustained.
The Toronto show was a lot of fun; we were joined by a Kanpe board member and Ambassador, as well as an awesome crew of volunteers who helped us have an absolutely incredible night - the ideal way to wrap up a tour!
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