Home sweet home

Strong community support for inaugural music festival & fundraiser shining a light on mental health

Organisers wcould not be more thrilled with the inaugural Close 2 Home Festival as they contiknue to aim for their $10,000 fundraising target for local mental health and suicide prevention.

The weather was kind, the stages were filled with musical talent from across the region and beyond and the community supported the fundraising and awareness rasining event in thier droves.

The Close 2 Home committee have worked hard over the past eight months to coordinate this inaugural event, garnering amazing support from local businesses with numerous donations of goods and services through to financial funding from the State Government – Music Development office and the See it Live Grants and a Community grant from OneFortyOne.

With the main goal of raising essential funds for mental health and suicide prevention for the Limestone coast region, a target of $10,000 was set with all funds to be split between four local business in Headspace – Mount Gambier, Four Reasons Why, Mount Gambier & Districts Suicide Prevention Group and the SE Junction ensuring that all the funds raised stay within the region.

Artists from across Australia, traveling from Perth, Sydney and Adelaide and Geelong, and of course some of Mount Gambier’s best musicians converged on the stages at the Mount Gambier Bowls Club and its versatile covered green.

Close 2 Home Festival chairperson Natasha Little said there were people across the whole venue throughout the whole nine hours of the event with more than 350 attendees throughout the day, which included all the volunteers and artists. “The atmosphere was amazing,” she said.

Local muso Michael ‘Willo’ Wilson, who was a key driver of the event given it stgarted with his own campiagn to raise funds for mental health awareness, said it was an incredible day. “It was great to see the community support such an important cause, and they were treated to some awesome live music in return,” Willo said.

Perth based artist Michael Ward (pictured right performing) said the festival was a remarkable event. “It brought together amazing musicians and appreciators to raise funds, awareness of mental health issues which myself and many people in my immediate network have suffered from – this show will go down as one of the most enjoyable shows eve,” Michael said.

The headline act Taylor Henderson (pictured right with event organiser Natasha Little) said being a part of the Close 2 Home Festival was such an amazing experience. “Meeting the Mount Gambier community and seeing how music brought everyone together to support an amazing event and raise much needed funds for local suicide prevention and mental health was something truly amazing,” Taylor said.

And organisers are determined to hit the $10,000 mark, leaving the donation link open until the end of this month, which is Mental Health Awareness Month, so if anyone would like to give a donation to help them reach the target of $10,000 please go to the following link and dig deep for the local community – https://www.trybooking.com/au/donate/close2homefestival.

The Close 2 Home Fesitval committee will take a well earned break before starting to organise next year’s event. Keep an eye on their social media platforms for further information.

WALL TO WALL TALENT: (Below from left) Portland band Jum Parker; local act Fi and Frenz – Fiona Unger, Callum Unger, James Owen and Marie Holmes and Adelaide group Fuselage. MT GAMBIER