My mom's in town for the Thanksgiving holiday, and driving around with her has reminded me just how damaged Houston, Galveston, and the rest of our Gulf Coast area still is -- she keeps pointing out how wow, those telephone poles are all leaning halfway out over that ditch, how there're blue tarps all over the roofs of that apartment complex, how the windows on that office are still boarded up. I've lived with this for long enough now that I turn a blind eye to it, I guess, the same way I used to be able to sleep through the drag queens having screaming matches outside our window at 4AM back when we lived in the Montrose (post-kid, a car engine's enough to wake me up some nights).

But the reality is that while a lot of us have been able to pull things back together and move on, a lot of our friends & neighbors haven't. That's why it does my heart good to hear about things like the recent partnership between ticket e-retailer StubDog.com and the Houston Arts Alliance, the Hurricane Ike Arts Relief Fund. The mission statement and general idea of the thing are as follows (from the StubDog.com folks):

On September 13, 2008 Hurricane Ike slammed into the Galveston coast and was the third most destructive Hurricane to ever hit the United States. The cost of the storm has reached into the billions of dollars and caused extensive damage in Texas. Hurricane Ike has had a significant impact on the arts community along the Gulf coast resulting in structural damage to many venues as well as severe monetary loss from canceled performances and rescheduling. We understand how difficult it is to maintain the ability to generate capital in the best of times, much less in the face of a disaster. To ease some of this pressure on arts organizations and to help in the rebuilding process, StubDog.com is proud to announce its partnership with the Houston Arts Alliance in an effort to raise funds for the Houston Arts Community.

From November 12 – December 12, 2008, StubDog will donate half of its profits to the Hurricane Ike Arts Relief Fund. $2 from every ticket sold in Houston, Dallas-Ft Worth and Los Angeles, half of our profits, will be donated directly to the Hurricane Ike Art Fund. Some clients have generously donated tickets for which all proceeds will go directly to the Art Relief Fund. These events will be highlighted with a small "Ike" Icon (see below) on the thumbnail image and tickets will also be noted as well. When purchasing these tickets please know that the total ticket amount will go to the Hurricane Ike Art Relief Fund as well as the $2 donation by StubDog.

CURRENT CLIENT DONORS

Houston
Comedysportz Houston
Jazz Education
U of H School of Theatre and Dance

Los Angeles
A Noise Within
Chance Theater
ComedySportz LA
The New LATC
Theatre of NOTE
Write Act Repertory Theatre

Seriously, I have the utmost respect for these folks for doing this -- it's always amazing to me to see businesses go out of their way to help people in need. I know where I'll be getting tickets from now on...

Labels: Charitable Things, H-Town News, Musical Crap, Public Service Announcements

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