24 Hours of Music, a fundraiser for Peoria local schools’ fine art programs, will return to Bradley for the fourteenth year this weekend.
The annual event includes music such as rock, techno, classical, Christian, acappella and jazz.
“24 Hours of Music is an organization run by student volunteers that exists to create, promote and encourage donations towards fundraising events,” said Jenna Ferdon, president of 24 Hours of Music. “[Its] aims are to help improve the quality of music education in Peoria’s School District 150. Music programs across the country are losing funding, as well as being cut from schools.”
Ferdon said there are several performers who are returning this year to support the cause.
“We have quite a few repeat performers this year, including Cheryl Rodey [Green Means Go], The Flat Billed Hats and Backyard Shark,” Ferdon said.
Volunteers of the event will camp out for 24 hours from 5 p.m. tonight through 5 p.m. tomorrow on the Olin Quad.
“Most of our volunteers are music majors or minors, or have a love for music,” Ferdon said. “We remember what those programs meant to us in school, and are working in the best way we can to preserve that experience so that others might have it too.”
Freshman music education major Natashia Coan said she is happy to help the cause.
“I am a member of the fundraising committee and helping at the actual concert event,” she said.
To raise money, supporters can buy T-shirts, guitar pick necklaces, earrings and buttons.
Coan said she likes organizations that help fund music in schools.
“I think 24 Hours of Music is a wonderful organization,” she said. “The music programs of Peoria School District 150 will definitely benefit from the work this organization does. I think any organization that helps fund music programs in schools is a wonderful thing that should be continued always.”
