by Kelsey Neff

July 19, 2010

We’re back on the road again with the Brad Paisley H2O World Tour, with last weekend’s visits to Chicago and Moline, IL!

Friday morning greeted us with hot temperatures and even hotter humidity! The severe temperatures didn’t sway the hardcore country fans, or our even more dedicated Water = Hope volunteer crew! We had a great group of volunteers, starting the day with 12 dedicated do-gooders, consisting of three sets of best friends. We had a group of high school students, and best friends, who had volunteered at other similar shows previously, and collected an awesome amount of e-mails and donations. We had Barry, Bob and Betty who went out into the Water World Plaza to talk to concert-goers about Water = Hope. Bob was an experienced campaigner who had volunteered at a U2 show a couple years back with the ONE Campaign, and he impressed us by raising a lot of money to build wells, working so hard we barely saw him! And last but not least, we had a best friend duo who worked together at a school and were on their feet moving for the majority of the night. Everyone did a great job, thanks to all of you for suffering through the heat with us!

We had a great response from fans in Chicago, raising almost three dollars for every e-mail address we collected! People were very interested in our goals and showed their support in many ways. We met a couple people from Texas who wanted to volunteer for us when we head that way in August, and others who grabbed t-shirts for a bunch of their friends and family. The show was fantastic and the crowd was great. Thanks for an awesome night Chicago!

In Moline we met Colin and Erica and their friends who were committed to matching the success we had in Chicago, even though we only had a third as many volunteers. They were energetic and passionate about Water = Hope and impressed us with their results. Moline’s crowd was a touch smaller than Chicago’s crowd, but we still got a really good response from Brad Paisley fans. One fan even looked through her phone and signed her whole family up for our e-mail list; she said she knew that they would want to support this cause. We also had a lot of fans stop by our table and then sent their friends back to sign up as well. The support we felt in both Chicago and Moline was really great; thanks for a successful first weekend back Illinois!

We’ll be back on the road this weekend hitting up Cleveland and Saratoga.

In August, we’ll be in Texas and Florida; visit the Water = Hope website to learn more and volunteer: http://www.waterequalshope.com/