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Arts & Culture
Care Squares
It’s the 2024 Inspire Charity Knitting Challenge!
Published 7th December 2016
Front man Ally Dickaty of The Virginmarys played a FREE solo gig to a packed studio audience at The Old Library Mansfield on Tuesday 6 December.
The Virginmarys played Rock City back in October and at the gig Ally pledged to play gigs for free if fans would like to host an event to support foodbank and homeless charities in their local community. Mansfield has an increasing number of rough sleepers and families in crisis and The Old Library are massive fans of The Virginmarys so offered to host a gig in Mansfield to support the cause locally. Ally’s pledge swiftly resulted in an 8-date UK tour with Mansfield stop number 3 on the tour.
I was amazed by the response of the event I put on in our hometown in September and decided to put it to our fans to help organise a UK tour, getting people actively involved. It’s a situation that’s continually getting worse and showing no signs of improvement, homelessness in Manchester has increased by 80% in the last 6 years. I want to feel like I’m actively doing something and not just talking about how bad things are getting. I wanted to do something great this Christmas.
Special Guest Charlie Fearon, 16, from Lowdham, kicked off the evening with his own soulful brand of acoustic music. Charlie has had a busy schedule of gigs and promotion for The People Help The People Gig and recently appeared on Notts TV. He also did a BBC Introducing Session which was featured on the BBC The Beat show on BBC Radio Nottingham at the weekend and which had 27,000 YouTube hits in just 24hours!
Audience members for the free gig were asked to bring a donation of food or cash instead of a paying ticket price and the result was amazing. All the food and donations collected on the night are going to Mansfield based Sherwood Forest Food Bank and also Framework.
We are so grateful for any donations that we receive, and it is so encouraging to know that people value and support the work of the Food Bank, and that they really care about the people who find themselves in "crisis" and without the means to feed themselves or their families.
