I first discovered the Yellow Bird Project tees about a year and a half ago. I bookmarked the site on my toolbar and vowed to make a purchase with my next paycheck. Fast-forward a year- I’d forgotten about the site and my resolution until I rediscovered the bookmarked page. By this time a few more tees were available. I knew if I didn’t buy a tee at that moment I’d keep putting it off. It’s not hard to justify the purchase, since the charity gets 100% of the profit. The more I thought about the more convinced I was of the cause. I bought two: The Broken Social Scene tee and The National. I also bought a Rilo Kiley tee for my best friends birthday (they make perfect gifts)!
When I wear my shirt I feel like I’m making more than just a fashion statement- I feel I’m contributing and bringing awareness to a good cause. I wear my shirts with pride and in doing so have initiated some pretty rad conversations with people.
We also figured that we would take this budding time, the de-gelling ice, and the birds chirping to better inform our YBP supporters on how YBP directly aids charities. Our spring charity spotlight is: Free Arts for Abused Children, a charity supported by Rilo Kiley, which has for 30 years delivered meaningful programs that integrate the healing powers of art to help at-risk and needy youth and families. Free Arts’ approach encourages youth to channel their emotions and develop positive methods of communication through creative activities such as drama, dance, painting, writing and music.
YBP recently contacted Karrah Lompa from Free Arts to find out how YBP donations are helping out this cause. We thought we would share with you her response: “These donations directly support our programs — they help Free Arts for Abused Children recruit, screen, train, place, and support community volunteers to work directly with more than 25,000 abused, are homeless or at-risk children and families living in crisis each year. The funds from the Yellow Bird Project, as with all funds received for the Elliott Smith Memorial Fund, are dedicated to providing creative arts programs to a vulnerable population of children who benefit from the support of caring adult volunteers and new opportunities to be creative and express themselves.”
A big YBP thanks goes out to Allison and the kind folks at Weber Shandwick, for generously purchasing a dozen Rilo Kiley tees to support Free Arts for Abused Children. They uploaded this cool photograph into our photo gallery, and if you look closely you can see that one of these t-shirts has been signed by every member of the band!
With the release of Rilo Kiley’s fourth studio album they totally changed the pace on us, but the results are incredible! Here is a youtube smattering of some of the songs from their new cd entitled “Under the Blacklight”. You can purchase the CD from insound here.
Rilo Kiley’s third release was certainly more adventurous. Released on August 17th, 2004 the CD combines Jenny’s divinely pure vocals with Blake’s howling guitar. Combining folk rock, country rock and just straight up rock, this CD is certainly a winner. Below is a YouTube sampling of some of the highlight songs from the cd. But be warned, they are all good! You can purchase the CD from Insound here.
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