Hey all, today’s the day I can share my new single with you…
I’ve so often stood in front of a bartender at 5 minutes to closing time begging him or her to not ring that last call bell for a few minutes longer. The pub is great, the songs and drinks and smiles and laughs are flowing and rolling. I have literally sang and danced and fell to my knees to try to get one more round. We Don’t Want To Go Home is the story of one of those nights in St. John’s Newfoundland. I was so glad that Dean Brody wanted to jump aboard and help tell this story of the night a few of us did our best to keep the party going. It’s a fun song with a bunch of friends on there just like it was that night in the pub.
Today is a big day for Dr. Andrew Furey, Brendan Paddick and myself as we launch a new foundation to help Mental Health and Addictions programs and facilities across Canada. We three have been working on this for a couple of years and are excited to share the vision with you all and humbly ask that you join us in making the country a happier and healthier place to be.
It started like this.
For the period of about a month in the early 2000s while recording a Great Big Sea album, I used to walk the length of Water Street every day from my house to the GBS studio. I’d regularly pass a gent on the street asking for money. Just about every day I gave him a dollar. When the recording was done, I hit the road and did not walk Water Street for a long time. I thought about that fella and wondered how I might give him a dollar a day without actually handing it to him. A week later I wrote a cheque for 365 dollars to a local charity that services people with mental health and addictions issues.
A few years later, during the bustling lead up to the holiday season, Andrew, Brendan and myself met up at a social event on Water Street and as there were many people along the street asking for a dollar, I told them the story of the gent from years past. We quickly got to day dreaming about how amazing it would be to create a system where anyone who wanted to could give a dollar and help people like him right across the country. We imagined a new way of fundraising where there were no fancy balls or events, and no stressful deeps reaches into your pocket. We imagined a new group of donors who may have thought giving to be out of their reach but would happily donate their pocket change today, and tomorrow, and the next day. And we imagined a single place where we could gather all that spare change and put it to good work right where people like the original gent on Water Street needed it the most: on the front lines of Mental Health and Addictions services.
The foundation that would become known as A Dollar a Day was born that night.
The concept is a simple one. If you have a dollar to spare and would like to help with Mental Health and Addiction issues, we can put it good use for you. We’ll get it to programs and facilities across the country who are doing great work and who just need financial help to do more of it. We’ll do it today, and tomorrow, and for as long as you want.
I could tell you about the desperate need for supporting these causes and the multiplied reward for investing in and improving the mental health of a community, but I’ll direct you to our website for that.
Most of all, I’d love for you to join us and pledge a little per day to make a big change from coast to coast to coast. And why not tell people you did? Just post a short video like this and share it on your socials and tag us:
A few Regional Champions have jumped aboard already and I’m grateful to them all.
Thanks for your interest in this. And thanks for helping everyone with A Dollar A Day.
