Blues, Brews and Books kicks off

SIX NATIONS – Yogi’s Barn opened its doors to visitors on Thursday, January 5, to enjoy Dwayne LaForme and the Boogie Blues Band to help raise funds for the Six Nations Public Library.

A safe and fully licensed event, this is just the start of what is hoped to be a great way to bring people together to enjoy music and help a good cause.

“This is the first of our events. We’re going to be doing this on the first Thursday of every month,” said Director of the Six Nations Library Sabrina Saunders. “We just hope that people will join us; first Thursday of every month we will be here, and we’re booked right until 2017.”

Saunders explained that most fundraisers that are put through are either golf tournaments or galas, but she wanted to do something different and this led her to the first Thursday’s idea.

“This is something that you don’t even have to support your library for, if you like Blues, come,” she said. “So, that’s what we’re trying to do is spread out events fundraising across a different area so we start hitting different people in the community.”

Saunders said that anyone that likes local bands and just wants to have an enjoyable night but still be able to get up in the morning for work; this is it.

“If you like the bands and you like local artists, everybody that we’re featuring is local,” she said. “It’s just a great way to enjoy yourself and do something great for your community.”

The money that is raised will be going directly towards programming at the Six Nations Library, as Saunders explained that the library within the Six Nations community doesn’t get funding the same way other libraries do.

“Libraries are underfunded within the province, especially First Nations libraries, normally 85 per cent of your funding comes from your local municipality, based on tax dollars. So, we don’t have that opportunity, so this is just a way to make some money throughout the year for some specific programming that we haven’t been able to do.”

“We don’t have any one program that we’re looking at, just mostly youth programming, tech programming, working with seniors and helping them to be safe with cyber technology, all of our kids programming that we do. So, a lot of things we had to cut back in the past year as wages have gone up, you know minimum wage goes up, hydro, it’s a way for us to try to bridge a bit of the gap.

If you’d like to help but the Blues isn’t quite your thing, T-shirts are also being sold at the Six Nations Library showcasing the Blues, Brews and Books logo.

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