Gouda Causes Archive

June/July 2006
Gouda Causes organized a multi-faceted fundraiser for the Staying Connected Fund.  The Staying Connected Fund is an account set up by the Denali Foundation to help with medical and other expenses for Gretchen Irwin, a breast cancer survivor and long time friend of SCI.  SCI Gear’s JC Barber participated in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer on June 23rd and 24th, soliciting over $10,000 in donations for that effort.  Our friends at the Mimi Fishman Foundation hosted an online auction in conjunction with this effort raising just over $3,000.  The Denali Cooks from Alaska also played a benefit concert in Denali Park on July 28th.  The proceeds from the concert, as well as those still to come from CD sales of that show were also donated to the Staying Connected Fund.  So far, more than $15,000 has been collected.  Fundraising is ongoing.

7/24/2006
Gouda Causes donates $500 from t-shirts sales at the SCI shows in Alaska to the Conscious Alliance.

6/24-8/6 2006
Conscious Alliance collected over 9,500 lbs of food and nearly $26,000 during their Food Drive on SCI summer tour.

12/30-12/31 2005
Gouda Causes and the Conscious Alliance collected over 2,200 lbs of food at the Sea of Dreams concerts in San Francisco.  This brings the total to over 134,00 lbs collected in our history together.

10/9/2005
On Sunday October 9th Gouda Causes, City Year New Hampshire, and the Blue Ocean Society teamed up to clean up the beach in front of the Hampton Club Casino.  We covered about a mile and a half of coastline collecting over 30 bags of garbage and debris!

8/5-8/7/2005
Conscious Alliance and Gouda Causes collected about 3500 lbs of food during the food drive at the shows at Horning’s Hideout in OR.

7/2-7/24/2005
The String Cheese Incident and accompanying artists on the Big Summer Classic went to great lengths to “Green” their summer tour.  Efforts included using Bio-diesel in their trucks and busses, energy credits used to offset power consumption, recycling, and the use of BIOTA spring water in bio-degradable bottles.
The Food Drive with Conscious Alliance collected almost 28,000 lbs worth of donations.

3/24-4/9/2005
SCI and Gouda Causes joined Conscious Alliance once again on a food drive during the spring ski tour.  Over 14,000 lbs of food were collected.

3/19/05
15 FOC’s joined World Vision in Denver in their efforts to help those affected by the Tsunami in southeast Asia.  We spent three hours at their Gifts in Kind distribution Center organizing supplies (mostly socks!) to be shipped overseas.  World Vision also joined us at the Fillmore Auditorium in Denver the following weekend to gain support for their group.

12/28-12/29/2004
Gouda Causes and Conscious Alliance collected over 4,500 lbs of food on their final Food Drive of the year.  The donations were given to the City Harvest Food Bank of New York City.  The total amount of food donated by the SCI community in 2004 was 47,216 lbs.

11/26-11/27/2004
2,638 lbs. of Food was collected at the SCI shows in Camden NJ over thanksgiving weekend.

10/15-10/31/2004
Gouda Causes and Conscious Alliance collected over 11,000 pounds of food during the fall 2004 SCI tour.  Roughly half of  the food collected was distributed locally with half going to the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.
Additionally, over $1,500 dollars was raised for the purchase of 300 turkeys for the reservation.

10/21/2004
For the second time Gouda Causes teamed up with Quality forward in Asheville N.C. for a restoration project.  FOC’s and volunteers from Quality Forward resuscitated a weed-choked lot at a major intersection in West Asheville.  First we cleaned up three different corners of the intersection, following that with the panting of about 50 native trees.

10/15-10/17/2004
Gouda Causes and SCI welcomed the Save our Springs Alliance to our shows in Austin at the Backyard.  The SOS Alliance is a non-profit organization in Austin dedicated to protecting Barton Springs and the Edwards Aquifer.  Representatives from SOS raised several hundred dollars in their “tip jar” and were able to sign up over 150 people to help with their latest project and receive their newsletter.

8/20/2004 
On August 20th,15 dedicated, public spirited String Cheese Incident fans met at the Cross Mountain Trailhead, 2 miles south of Lizard Head Pass, in the beautiful San Juan Mountains.  In celebration of SCI’s upcoming weekend in Telluride, and in partnership with the San Juan Mountains Association and the National Forest Service, we gathered to work on the drainage system along the first few miles of the trail that leads to Lizard Head Mountain.  Between 9:00 am and 2:00 pm we created or repaired approximately 30 different drainages along the first two miles of the trail.  The weather cooperated nicely and the mood was upbeat as we road tested the “many hands make light work” theory.  Special thanks go to Kent Rector of SJMA and Mike Cochran of the NFS for their patient instruction of us “newbies.”  It is safe to say that none of us involved with the project will ever cross a log or rock drainage without a new appreciation for their purpose, and the effort involved in their construction.

6/18-8/22/2004
Conscious Alliance accompanied SCI during their summer tour holding Food Drives at all venues.  The Conscious Alliance gathered 14,350 lbs of food on this summer tour.

6/18-8/22/2004
Gouda Causes welcomed Headcount.org and Rock the Earth to the entirety of SCI’s summer tour.
HeadCount.org http://www.headcount.org is a volunteer-based organization that is unleashing an aggressive and highly publicized voter registration drive targeting fans of live, improvisational music.
Rock the Earth www.rocktheearth.net acts as an advocate to ensure the existence of a sustainable and healthy environment for all.  They aim to represent those individuals and communities whose environment or natural surroundings are directly and adversely affected by others.

6/18-6/20/2004 
FOC’s played the  Lifesavers Game at Horning’s Hideout.  Physical manifestations of the earth’s 17 essential services were hidden in the woods around the camping areas.  After a treasure hunt to find the services, participants gathered to discuss their finds, focusing on the interrelationship of these services and the relevance to the sustainability of our lifestyles on the planet. 
FOC’s also took advantage of our Ecological Footprint Calculator to determine their own personal impact on the planet via their consumption of goods and services.

4/8-4/12/2004
East Coast Blues and Roots Festival, Byron Bay Australia. Conscious Alliance made the trip to the southern hemisphere with us for our first International Food Drive. After a slow start, we picked up a lot of momentum and wound up collecting nearly 700 pounds of food. The very generous Australian crowd also contributed nearly $1300 in cash donations. The food and money was distributed to local homeless residents of the Byron Shire.

4/7/2004
Friends of Cheese met with local environmental groups from Byron Bay Australia for a clean up in a local forest area. FOC’s and others met behind the Suffolk Park Service Station, just a few kilometers west of the Bluesfest grounds. The project involved the picking up and disposing of litter, as well as the removal of invasive non-native plant species. JC claims the poisonous spiders didn’t scare him a bit!

3/30-4/3/2004
Gouda Causes welcomed Friends of the Earth UK http://www.foe.co.uk to their run of shows in the United Kingdom.

3/11-3/13/2004
Gouda Causes welcomed Headcount.org to Winter Carnival in Denver for our first ever voter registration effort. Over the three days we were able to get over 150 new people involved in the interest of democracy. Headcount.org was able to register 56 new voters in the state of Colorado, and 35 other concert-goers from across the country. Additionally, 65 more folks signed up on their mailing list and 21 offered their time to be future volunteers.

3/11-3/13/2004
Gouda Causes once again teamed up with Conscious Alliance, this time for their most successful Food Drive to date. During SCI’s winter carnival run in Denver, nearly 5.5 tons (11,000 lbs!) of food was donated. The collected food was donated to hunger relief agencies in Denver and Pine Ridge South Dakota.

3/6/2004 Denver Colorado
10 FOC’s gathered in a northeast Denver neighborhood to join Neighborhood Partners in a volunteer construction project. Along with representatives from Neighborhood Partners, volunteers from the construction industry, and the future tenants, the Gouda Causes crew helped in the initial stages of building a house. Starting from a concrete slab, we labored in a gusty breeze while the walls, upstairs floor, and roof trusses, were nailed into place.
Founded in 1991, Neighborhood Partners focuses not only on providing housing, but doing so with a commitment to establishing the self-sufficiency of community residents. Since it’s inception, Neighborhood Partners has renovated 27homes, reduced abandoned homes in the Cole neighborhood by over 10%, and been selected as the Mile High United Way’s central project for 1997.

12/29-12/31/2003 Chicago, IL
Gouda Causes and Conscious Alliance collected almost three tons of food the band’s New Year’s Eve run in Chicago. The food was delivered to the Chicago Food Depository.

12/10 2003 Eugene, OR
The String Cheese Incident moved their holiday benefit concert to Oregon this year for a very special December 10th performance at the McDonald Theater. The event raised money for the new Ken Kesey Memorial that rests at the downtown corner of Broadway and Willamette in Eugene, Oregon.
SCI is honored to be part of this memorial to acknowledge and commemorate the enormous literary contributions of the late, great author. Ken Kesey lived and worked most of his life in Oregon and graduated from the University of Oregon. The life size bronze sculpture, unveiled November 14th, depicts Kesey seated on a bench reading a book to three youngsters, something he often liked to do.

10/4-10/14 2003 West Coast Tour
Gouda Causes once again teamed up with Conscious Alliance to hold a food/toy drive during SCI’s Almost Winter tour. Over 9,000 pounds of food were collected and distributed between Los Angeles and Vancouver. Additionally, a 14ft. truck was filled with toys and sent to the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.

10/31 2003 Las Vegas, NV
Thanks to those of you who attended SCI’s Hulaween celebration and purchased tickets for the Charity Raffle. Raffle winner Alice Lorraine Carver "married" Michael Kang on stage during set break. The activity raised $620.00 for Citizen Alert – a grassroots, not-for profit organization based in the State of Nevada that provides education, advocacy, and empowerment to citizens on matters of environmental policy and environmental justice since 1975. www.citizenalert.org

10/7 2003 Burlington, VT
Ten SCI community members spent a sunny October afternoon helping Green Mountain Club build their new Short Trail. The Green Mountain Club is the founder and maintainer of Vermont’s Long Trail, America’s oldest long-distance hiking trail. The Long Trail travels 272 miles along the spine of the Green Mountains, from the Massachusetts border to the Canadian border. The still under construction Short Trail is a two-mile long interpretive trail that winds through the back yard of GMC headquarters in Waterbury, Vermont, providing an opportunity for visitors to learn what it’s like to hike the Long Trail. SCI volunteers clipped brush, removed blow downs, set step-stones and unearthed huge boulders that will later be used to fiord swampy zones along the Short Trail. For more information visit http://www.greenmountainclub.org/.

10/5 2003 Philadelphia, PA
Gouda Causes sponsored a silent auction at the Philly show on October 5th to raise money for the Greater Philadelphia Chapter of the Healing the Children Foundation. Healing the Children is a national non-profit, non-denominational organization that provides free medical care and assistance to children from the United States and abroad. Throughout the world children suffer and die or live disfigured because medical care is unavailable to them. It is Healing the Children Foundation’s goal to help change this truth. For more information on the Greater Philadelphia Healing the Children Foundation, please visit http://www.healingthechildrengp.org. The auction raised $1394 for the cause.

8/1-8/3 2003
In our last issue we spoke of some of the forest devastation in indigent areas of the planet where people use wood to cook. Solar ovens can have a profound effect in reversing this damage. FOC Eleonora Molnar of Vancouver BC writes of her experience cooking at Horning’s hideout:

My Solar Cooking Expereince at Hornings..
I brought my solar oven to Hornings to demonstrate solar cooking to the Cheese peeps. Over all the demonstration was a lot of fun, although one day there was hardly any sun. On the sunniest days the oven got up to 300 degrees which was a perfect temperature for the cookies and the lasagna that I baked. Cheese peeps were appreciative of the solar treats and wanted to know more about how the oven worked, how to make one, and under what conditions it worked best. Several peeps gave me their addresses so that I could send them the plans for the oven- maybe we will see more solar ovens at the next hornings. The funniest thing was watching people check out the solar oven at night. Some people would walk around the oven for at least 5 minutes trying to figure out what it was. Is it a huge popcorn popper, some kind of alien device, no, it's really a sanitizer! Listening to people's conversations at night, trying to figure out the solar oven was very entertaining to say the least. Long live solar cooking!

7/24-7/30 2003
SCI/Gouda Causes was happy to welcome Louis Morgan of the Bay Area Coalition for the Headwaters Forest (BACH) along for the California leg of the summer tour. Stedfastedly manning his table from the Warfield to trinity Fairgrounds, Louis was able to get 359 letters signed and sent to the appropriate California State Assemblypersons. Said Louis: "It was far and away the most successful outreach effort that BACH has ever had." He was also able to distribute over 500 fliers adding a noticeable increase to the group’s e-list. You can learn more about BACH’s efforts to preserve biologically viable redwoods forests in California at www.headwaterspreserve.org. As of press time gubernatorial candidates Arnold Schwarzenegger and Gary Coleman were unavailable for comment.

07/04-05/03 Paolo Soleri Amphitheater, Santa Fe New Mexico
SCI Gouda Causes teamed up with Terrapin Productions on a fund raising event for injured climber and SCI fan Aron Ralston. Approximately $5000 was raised through a raffle, silent auction, and sales of a commemorative poster. This total is still incomplete as funds continue to come in from a concurrent on-line auction in progress.

05/25-26/03 Georgia Frontiere Performing Arts Center, Sedona AZ
SCI Gouda Causes and Conscious Alliance once again teamed up on a food drive. Between 4 and 5 thousand pounds of food were collected at Sedona, making it the most successful food drive event yet at an SCI concert. The food was delivered to the Winslow, AZ food storage unit of the Adopt an Elder program, www.anelder.org.

04/26/03 Orpheum Theater, Minneapolis MN
Hundreds of fans at the Minnesota shows stopped by the free Health Screening table in the lobby of the Orpheum Theater on Saturday, April 26th. A nursing staff, provided with help from our friends, The Big WU, was available for free health screenings. Concertgoers had their blood pressure taken, as well as getting heart and lung sound tests taken. Written health evaluations were provided as well as advice for staying fit and healthy on the road.

04/18/03 Asheville Civic Center, Asheville NC
During their show at the Asheville Civic Center on April 18th, the band, together with Asheville City Schools Foundation www.acsf.org, and the Buncombe County Schools Foundation www.bcsf.buncombe.k12.nc.us, hosted a backpack/school supplies drive to benefit local Asheville elementary school students.
Show attendees were encouraged to bring a small daypack filled with school supplies to donate to the cause. Supplies donated included: backpacks, pencils, pens, notebook paper, erasers, highlighters, tape, blunt scissors, staplers, staples, markers, rulers, and small calculators. Generous SCI fans donated 26 backpacks in all as well as some loose school supplies. The value of the donated supplies was $700, not including the cost of the backpacks. The supplies were split evenly between the two foundations.
Kathi Ballard with the Asheville City Schools Foundation said that their portion of the supplies were going to young students enrolled in the KIPP Program. They are mostly poor minority kids who have decided on a rigorous course of study that will prepare them for college. The supplies couldn’t have come at a better time for these students as supplemental system funds had run out and they only had a short break before their summer programs.

04/13/03 Asheville NC
FOC’s in the Asheville area met to work on a local Gouda Cause. In cooperation with Quality Forward http://qualityforward.org/home.html , a local branch of Keep America Beautiful, FOC’s convened Sunday, April 13th to work on a beautification project. FOC met at Thompson Street in the middle of one of Asheville's busiest business districts to clean up and plant an emerging greenway. Volunteers cleaned up roadside trash as well as trash on the banks of the Swannanoa, spread mulch on a walking path, and planted trees and flowers along the road. This area, once smothered by weeds and invasive plants is being adopted by Quality Forward in order to try and maintain green spaces in the middle of busy business districts.

04/13/03 Big Cat, Osaka Japan
A silent auction was held at the SCI shows in Tokyo to benefit A Seed Japan. ASJ, an adjunct of A Seed International, is a youth based citizens group dedicated to bringing awareness to environmental issues. Rather than focusing on a solitary environmental concern, ASJ approaches these causes from a global perspective. Their belief that all aspects of the environment act in relation to one another leads them to "think globally, and act locally. Approximately ____$/Yen was raised.

03/17-22/03 Dobson Arena, Vail, CO and Fillmore Auditorium Denver ,CO
During The String Cheese Incident’s Winter Carnival run their hometown state of Colorado, fans traded 10 cans of food for a commemorative poster from artist Michael Everett. The event, sponsored by Conscious Crusade for Food, collected 3 tons of food. The food collected was donated to the people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

12/19/02 Boulder Theatre, Boulder, CO
The String Cheese Incident will play their annual holiday charity show on Dec. 19th, with all proceeds going to local charities, including Background Noise, The Boulder County Safehouse, The Child Development Program, Conscious Alliance, EcoCycle School Department, Emergency Family Assistance Association, and Hospice of Boulder County.

11/1-2/02 Rio Pavilion, Las Vegas, NV
FOCCAN and the Footprints Foundation hosted a late night bowl-over to benefit homeless Las Vegas teens. The event included artwork for sale, raffles, DJ’s, and late-night cosmic bowling. $7000.00 was raised to benefit Street Teens, a Las Vegas organization that works to empower homeless teens to move from a life on the streets to a life of self-sufficiency.

10/25-26/02 Berkeley Community Theater, Berkeley, CA
The Footprints Foundation and Friends of Cheese Community Action Netword held a charity coat drive in Berkeley and collected over 300 coats and blankets for the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. The BFHP provides meals, overnight shelter, long-term temporary housing, permanent housing, and support to homeless and developmentally disabled women, children, and men. Michael Everett rewarded members of the String Cheese Incident Community that donated a coat with a free poster.

10/16-17/02 Centre for the Performing Arts, Vancouver BC
The Vancouver Incident was titled The Ecological Incident. At the show, fans were able to measure how lightly (or heavily) they tread upon the Earth. Many were surprised by their results, and were taught how they could go about being more conscious of the Earth’s delicate balance.

10/12/02 Adams Fieldhouse, Missoula, MT
Members of The String Cheese Incident Community gathered in Missoula to re-route a trail in the Rattlesnake Recreation Area outside of Missoula. Friends of the band also supported a construction of a recording studio for the Boys’ and Girls’ Club of Missoula by attending a pre-show charity gathering.

10/5/02 Tacoma, WA
The Footprints Foundation teamed up for the first time with Habitat For Humanity in Tacoma to build the future home of the Cabigas family. The crew worked alongside the family from 9-4 to help with insulation and framing of the home’s interior.

7/21/02 Tsongas Arena, Lowell, MA
In order to create an even healthier community surrounding The String Cheese Incident, concertgoers in Lowell, MA were able to visit a Planned Parenthood booth at The Tsongas Arena. Volunteers at the booth educated The String Cheese Community about making healthy decisions.

7/18/02 Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD
Upon hearing that public schools in Baltimore are unable to offer music education due to a lack of funding, The String Cheese Incident knew that something needed to be done. In an effort to change this problem, members of the band and friends gave twenty Baltimore Talent Education Center students a chance to see the show and visit with the musicians, who encouraged them to further their studies and careers.

7/14/02 Nautica Stage, Cleveland, OH
Upon arriving in Cleveland, The String Cheese Incident met up with The Cleveland Free Clinic. The Clinic is a freestanding medical, dental, and mental health center that thrives off volunteer efforts by 600 doctors and nurses who treat 20,000 Cleveland area patients for free, supporting their belief that health care is a right, not a privilege. The Clinic set up a booth at the show to teach The String Cheese Incident Community how to stay healthy while traveling with the band.

7/13/02 Deer Creek Amphitheater, Noblesville, IN
The SCI community joined the Nature Conservancy’s Indiana branch to take a nature hike before SCI’s show in Noblesville. On the hike, exotic plant species were removed from the state’s natural terrain.

7/12/02 Alpine Valley Amphitheater, East Troy, WI
By donating used books and CD’s to the East Troy Public Library, Friends of the String Cheese Incident created a partnership that will continue into the future. The items collected helped the East Troy Public Library in their plans for expansion. As a special thank you, the library held a story time hour before the concert in which fans and their children got to enjoy performances by costumed storytellers.

7/3-6/02 Steamboat Springs and Red Rocks Amphitheaters, CO
During The String Cheese Incident’s summer run through their hometown state of Colorado, fans traded 10 cans of food for a commemorative poster from artist Michael Everett. The event, sponsored by a Colorado group called Conscious Crusade for Food, collected 4 tons of food and $2,200 in monetary contributions. The food and money collected were donated to Community Food Share Boulder/Longmont, The Food Bank of the Rockies, and the people of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.

6/29/02 Starlight Theater, Kansas City, KS
In Kansas City, concertgoers participated in a Silent Auction to benefit the Hope House. The Hope House’s mission is to break the cycle of domestic violence by providing safe refuge and support services to victimized families that educate and empower women and children.

6/28/02 Zoo Amphitheater, Oklahoma City, OK
To show support for children’s literacy, fans in brought their old children’s books with them to the SCI concert in at the Zoo Amphitheater. Books collected at the show were distributed amongst four area schools that used the books in summer literacy programs.

6/27/02 Barton Coliseum, Little Rock, AR
In Little Rock, the Footprints Foundation sponsored the creation of a CD library for The University of Arkansas Multiple Myeloma Cancer Institute. Friends and family of The String Cheese Incident donated over 1500 CD’s and Radio Shack and the Mimi Fishman Foundation donated 20 portable CD players, creating a music library for use by the thousands of patients at the Institute.

6/26/02 Mud Island Amphitheater, Memphis, TN
In Tennessee, SCI and family teamed up with Hands on Memphis, a non-profit organization from Memphis that after assessing volunteer’s choices and skills, provides Memphis residents with opportunities to get involved within the community. Amongst other volunteer opportunities, friends of Cheese signed up to mentor, tutor, and provide outings for children.

6/17-19/02 Fox Theater, St. Louis, MO
During String Cheese’s stay in St. Louis, members of The String Cheese Community gathered to revitalize a run-down section of the downtown area. In partnership with Gateway Greening, SCI friends gathered with St. Louis area volunteers to landscape and plant a functioning garden, adding handicapped accessible beds to the Caronelet Community Garden at the corner of Michigan and Elwood Streets.

4/12-13/02 UIC Pavilion, Chicago, IL
A silent auction was held at the Chicago Incidents raising $2465.00 to support The Snow City Arts Foundation. Snow City Arts brings the arts to hospitalized children in the Chicago area, nurturing creativity and imagination.

4/4-5/02 Waterloo Park, Austin, TX
During the Austin Incidents, $500 was raised for the Stevie Ray Vaughn Scholarship Fund, a fund that encourages students with strong musical abilities to pursue a college education. The fund awards scholarships to students from the Dallas area.

2/15-20/02 Colorado Winter Carnival
At the Fillmore and Vail Incidents along The String Cheese Incident’s Winter Carnival tour, a food drive was held to benefit several local charities, including Community Food Share (of Boulder and Broomfield), The Food Bank of The Rockies (Denver), The Boulder Shelter (Boulder), The Project Heritage Shelter (Denver), Restoration Center for Homeless Women (Denver), and the Elders and Peoples of Big Mountain, AZ and Pine Ridge, SD.

12/29-31/01 Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, CA
The String Cheese Incident hosted a silent auction to benefit Little Kids Rock. Little Kids Rock provides free music lessons and instruments to public schools, focusing on popular music forms such as rock, funk, hip-hop, rap, and blues. Students get a chance to compose, perform, and record their own music. Friends of Cheese collected $1250 to benefit the program.

10/31/02 and 11/2/02 New York City and Washington, DC
The post-September 11th healing process was tough for everyone. In an effort to assist victims and return to lives of normalcy, The String Cheese Incident auctioned off band memorabilia and passes to upcoming New Year’s shows. The money gathered from the auction was given to The Windows of Hope Family Relief Fund in New York and The Survivors Fund of The Community Foundation of the Capital Region in DC.

7/22/01 Fleet Boston Pavilion, Boston, MA
Both friends of the String Cheese Incident, the band, and management were unaware of a newly activated ticket transaction fee at the Fleet Pavilion. In light of the misunderstanding, The String Cheese Incident donated $2500, equivalent to the amount collected in fees, to the Pine St. Homeless Shelter in Boston.

7/7/01 Riverport Amphitheater, St. Louis, MO
The String Cheese Incident community teamed up with Widespread Panic fan-based group Panic Fans For Food to collect 295 pounds of food and $137 in monetary donations.