The Ashland World Music Festival – Bringing Back Shared Positive Experience in Support of Community Rebuilding

Like many local organizations, Rogue World Music curtailed programming and got creative in order to keep our mission active despite the combined challenges of COVID19 pandemic and Almeda Fire impacts.

We adapted by planning a virtual offering the Ashland World Music Festival for September 10, 2020. The goal was to  continue a sense of community and cultural connections during a time when both felt tenuous to so many. When the Almeda Fire devastated our region on September 8, we paused yet again in recognition of the gravity of the disaster and to process the shock and trauma alongside our community.

As the smoke cleared, Rogue World Music  saw the disproportionate impact the Almeda Fire had on Latino, low-income and elderly Rogue Valley residents. We realized that RWM could and should continue stretching our programming capacity to serve our community in increasingly unique and stressful times. The arts can catalyze action, so we made a commitment to a new way of showing up in our community and focused that power in support of fire relief.

Leveraging the Arts for Fire Recovery – in Partnership with Local Community Leaders

The  2020 virtual Ashland World Music Festival was rescheduled for November 2020l, with an added fire-relief fundraising component.  It raised $10,000 for the Phoenix-Talent school district’s fire-relief efforts. In May of 2021, we leveraged a hybrid version of the AWMF to raise another $10,000 for the UNETE Immigrant Family and Farmworkers Fire Relief Fund. Then, with the return of our in-person festival in May of 2022, we raised nearly $10,000, this time benefiting Coalición Fortaleza.

A collective of Latina community leaders, Coalición Fortaleza began organizing community meetings in response to the disproportionate devastation of predominantly Latinx neighborhoods. Federal relief programs were slow to respond and inaccessible to undocumented folks and mixed documentation families. Coalición Fortaleza’s leaders invoked the guidance of community elders in October of 2020, when one simply suggested, 

”What if we just bought our neighborhoods back?”

Fire Recovery Efforts Bearing Fruit! Talent Mobile Estates to Become Resident-Owned

In June we received the following message from Coalicion’s Executive Director Erica Ledesma:

“On June 24th— we woke up to the news that after 18 months of hard work, our tireless efforts to restore our community’s dignity and sense of home is now closer to being possible with the successful purchase of Talent Mobile Estates which will soon be the first-ever resident owned community in Southern Oregon! Establishing Talent Mobile Estates as a Resident-Owned Community (ROC) is just the first of many real long-term permanent affordable housing solutions to come.”

We were elated!

This is a tangible, positive step towards rebuilding our community and addressing endemic issues in housing equity. It affirms our integration of a fundraising focus into our largest community offering, the Ashland World Music Festival.  In addition to the real results manifesting for real people, the RWM team is incredibly grateful for the new community partnerships that coalesced around the goal.

RWM’s ED Ana Byers is a Talent City Council member who also serves on the Coalicion Fortaleza Board of Directors. She spearheaded RWM’s cultural outreach initiative during the pandemic, seeding key community relationships that formed a foundation for our new layer of community (re)building efforts. Uniting and cooperating around this crucial issue highlighted the power in collaboration across sectors and service focus.

Community Partners: Key to Each Step in the Journey!

Support for the AWMF translated into direct support for Coalición Fortaleza’s groundbreaking victory since we leveraged our communications, publicity, programs and events to amplify and facilitate the call to support fire recovery and rebuilding. 

This community synergy resulted in an outcome in which over 2,000 people enjoyed the return of a fully free Ashland  World Music Festival while stepping up to support fire recovery.  

To each business sponsor, private donor, local government department like Ashland Parks & Recreation Commission, and local organization like Ashland Chamber of Commerce, and the many community members who stepped up to support fire recovery efforts, we extend our heartfelt gratitude. We are grateful and excited to continue on this path of harnessing the unifying energy of world music experiences to create synergistic outcomes for our whole community.

Thank you for being part of this journey!