NZ Music T-shirt Day Returns To Raise Money For MusicHelps In 2023

During NZ Music Month in May, MusicHelps has a great and fun way to support its activities – NZ Music T-Shirt Day. This will be taking place on Friday 26th May 2023 as part of NZ Music Month. It’s all about celebrating great New Zealand music and showing your support by sporting your favourite band tee. NZ Music T-Shirt Day aims to raise funds for MusicHelps, a charity launched to support projects that help the most vulnerable in our communities through projects that use the power of music to help and heal. Gather your friends, whānau and workplace, create a team, spread the message, and donate by visiting www.nzmusictshirtday.org.nz or texting MUSIC to 2448 to donate $3.

MusicHelps develops projects in the community that use music to support the most vulnerable. This includes music therapy sessions, music programs in respite and palliative care, music education programs for the at-risk and vulnerable and rehabilitation programs to name a few. They also provide free professional counselling and emergency financial and wellbeing support to kiwi music workers. Since inception, they have impacted over 80,000 people across Aotearoa.

This year's New Zealand Music Month has a key theme of Community and Collaboration, which is exactly what MusicHelps is all about. NZ Music T-shirt day 2023 will unite music lovers through showcasing the community of phenomenal talent we have here in Aotearoa. This will all be made possible by the commitment of MusicHelps supporters who see the difference music makes in New Zealanders lives.

World class producer, Founder of NZ Music venue BIG FAN and board member of MusicHelps Joel Little says "NZ Music T-shirt Day is a great excuse to wear an awesome t-shirt and support your favourite kiwi artist, as well as raise money for the incredibly important work of MusicHelps. Make sure to get involved on Friday 26th May and make sure to donate if you can!”

From Blenheim to Whanganui, Tamaki Makaurau to Hutt Valley and Hamilton to Otautahi, MusicHelps provides grants to a variety of communities in Aotearoa to get everyone involved in music.

Some highlights this year include:

Hamilton’s The Rauhī Project grants access to free music education and social development to the most marginalised and excluded youth in the community. "Thanks to generous supporters such as MusicHelps, we are able to provide weekly one-on-one instrumental and musical theory lessons from Hamilton's best instrumental tutors, as well as facilitate group music making and choral ensembles. These classes are at no cost to our students, and work to increase their confidence, creativity, and engagement in their community."

Auckland’s Crescendo’s youth mentoring programme offers a range of song-writing, performance, audio engineering, sound production, podcasting and radio broadcasting courses. Crescendo’s rangatahi are referred to by local schools, youth justice, Oranga Tamariki or social services. They have been identified as talented, but at risk of being excluded from higher education, training or employment. Many lack positive role models, live in financially strained households and have family affiliations with crime or gangs.

Cat Percy, CEO of Crescendo says “Crescendo’s youth mentoring programmes aim to empower rangatahi to express themselves artistically, gain technical skills and support their growth on their chosen pathway. MusicHelps grants have assisted Crescendo’s mentors to work with our young people and ensure they have bright futures ahead.”

MusicHelps is also working with Creative Kids Trust, a Marlborough-based not-for-profit organisation that provides creative arts pathways for children, youth and the wider whanau. Their Kaupapa is to facilitate growth and establish a healthy sense of self by uniting a community that recognises and acts on inclusiveness, diversity and respect. They believe that supporting future generations by showing & mentoring a robust pathway to a connected community will ultimately strengthen our community. Through participation and engaging creatively in art, theatre, music or movement, the creative processes help individuals to explore and express unconscious material that is often difficult to articulate in words.

"The Creative Kids team are extremely grateful for all of the wonderful support that MusicHelps has provided us with since our inception, enabling us to provide Music Therapy sessions to vulnerable preschoolers with developmental needs in our community. The program helps the children develop communication skills, short and long-term memory, improve gross motor skills, assist with anxiety, and most importantly find connection and friendship for both them and their families. Thank you MusicHelps for your supporting the Creative Kids team and our Marlborough community."

The support MusicHelps provide extends to the very people that bring us the music we love. From singers to sound engineers, managers to musicians, MusicHelps service is available to anyone involved in the Aotearoa music industry to ensure people are taken care of when they need it most, and does so through emergency grants, the MusicHelps benevolent fund, the Covid-19 financial relief payments, and a 24/7 helpline providing urgent counselling services to the very people that bring us the music we love.

New Zealand Music T Shirt Day is primed to become a favourite fundraising event during NZ Music Month. This year’s event will raise much needed funds for grants to those who use music to help and heal as well as support the music community with whatever challenge they might face into the future.

For a full list of kiwi bands and artists who are currently selling merchandise online, please head to: https://www.nzmusictshirtday.org.nz/t-shirts-and-merchandise

To create a team to raise money together, please head to: https://www.nzmusictshirtday.org.nz

Te Marama Puoro O Aotearoa NZ Music Month runs throughout May across Aotearoa. Find out more at nzmusicmonth.co.nz

© Scoop Media