Imagine rocking along to your favorite shows – fo’ free – after spending a day serving the Atlanta community. That’s the note budding organization, Serve to Rock, hopes to hit. As a music enthusiast and lover of community service, April is equipping volunteers with opportunities to get their hands dirty, followed by a night of arm sways and hip swings.
April’s first event, Love Your City || Rock Your City, will be in collaboration with Community Bucket where 250 volunteers will wipe their brows with Park Pride, sip on java from Refuge Coffee Company and nosh on Whole Foods snacks, all while repping sweet swag from Alternative Apparel. After sundown, volunteers will ring in the night sipping on vino at City Winery and groovin’ to jams from ATL Collective.
We’ll give you a few minutes to book your tickets before they’re gone, then head back over to read how April’s Serve to Rock concept is producing the perfect service melody.
What’s your background and how did you land on the idea for Serve to Rock?
My background is in music and building community around music. I worked for Sixthman, a small company here in Atlanta producing music festivals on cruise ships. It’s a gathering of 3,000 people, once a year, to celebrate the music they love.
That experience taught me how to build and cultivate community, how important that is for any band or brand to sustain. I developed a huge appreciation for the ability of bands to bring people of all kinds, from all walks of life, together.
I was there for almost 10 years, left, and did some consulting for nonprofits for a little while. I went to grad school, worked for a local creative agency, Son&Sons. After a great experience there, I felt the push to make another change. I thought I was going to work for a nonprofit again, but before accepting another job, I took a moment to pause. I traveled for a couple of weeks, met with several advisors and close friends, and although the job was a great opportunity, I knew it wasn’t right. I wanted to do something else. I wanted to stretch more. I had this fire in me and had to figure out what that meant.
So, I went back to a bunch of notes I made in a journal three years before when I left Sixthman and became reunited with my ideas for Serve to Rock. The concept was a day of service, followed by a night of rock. Earned admission to music experiences. I really like getting the music industry involved to show people that their time matters just as much as their money.
As I spent time my old notes, I started to get excited. I knew this was it, I just had to push it forward. The whole idea is inspiring a habit of volunteering and attitude of service and it’s something that was instilled in me since I was little. It’s something I’ve always appreciated. The minute you serve someone else, your perspective changes a little bit. Whether it’s children or seniors or diverse members of the community. It’s impossible to serve someone else and not change a little bit of your own perspective. I want that to be contagious. I want people to have such a great experience serving that they want to do it again and again and again until it becomes part of who they are.
I think the music industry has a huge opportunity to get behind this idea and really embed it into they way they do business.
So, I’m starting small and local. It can grow beyond music and into other cities, and I hope it does, but that’s where I want to start. You have to start somewhere.
So what’s your first move? What does this first Serve to Rock event look like?
I had several great mentors of mine say, “Just take a step, plan something, try it out, learn, and then take a bigger step.” So, my first call after that advice was to Jesse with Community Bucket. We had met three years ago when I first had this idea. So I pitched him the idea of partnering on something a Community Bucket project with a show at the end of the day so I could feel it. He was like, “Yeah, let’s give it a shot!”
So, the event is February 18th and it’s called Love Your City || Rock Your City. Volunteering will be with Park Pride in the morning from 9-12 over at Kittredge Park. It’s a beautiful park that needs a lot of love, so we’ll keep 250 people really busy for three hours. The Refuge Coffee Company truck, which is a coffee shop working with refugees in Clarkston, will be serving coffee. Whole Foods Market is donating yummy snacks and Alternative Apparel is donating super soft t-shirts. People will have a much-needed break after the project and then we will be gathering again at 5:00 at City Winery. There will be a free tasting of wine and we’ll be holding a raffle with all things Atlanta. At 6:00, ATL Collective will perform. They are a group of amazing local musicians who will perform one Paul Simon album from start to finish.
Why is this model of volunteering important for incoming generations?
There’s a segment of people who serve already and then there’s those, especially in the younger generations, who want to find a place to give but don’t know where to look. There are resources out there, I’m just not sure they’re resources that feel very authentic to millennials. What if it’s just a friend and I instead of a large group? Or, if we want to do something next Thursday night because we have it open? How do I find that opportunity and ensure it’s a meaningful experience? If I sign up, go volunteer, and it’s not a great experience, I’m going to be way more hesitant to do it again. This is especially important for organizations that are just figuring out how to manage and utilize volunteers. I want to be a great resource for them to make sure that their experience is awesome and they think about doing it the next time they have time!
What’s your vision beyond Love Your City || Rock Your City?
From there, I’m working on a lot of things. There’s this need for grassroots organizations in the city to have good volunteer matching resources, so what does that look like from a technology standpoint? Then building off that technology, working on how to bring that community of volunteers back together over music. I’m still figuring out exactly what that looks like and what my next small step is going to be, but that’s the big picture.
I’m also in talks with a few local festivals. We’re trying to make something work for this year with a small group of tickets. Most festivals offer volunteer tickets, where work for one day at the festival and you get the other two days for free. Serve to Rock is similar, yet different. To me, this is the founder of a festival the chance to make a statement that they value being active and giving back in Atlanta. They are saying “I want you to go into the community that I built this festival in and give back. And that time you put in is worth a three-day pass.”
Ultimately, I feel like there are a ton of opportunities and ways this could play out but it fires me up that someone can find something they love, with the skills that they have, and are rewarded with some sort of experience they want. It’s the ultimate way of volunteering!
Ready to serve your way to rocking out at music shows in Atlanta? Check out Love Your City || Rock Your City.
All photos are property of Serve to Rock.
