A very special song featuring some very special kids is helping the Donegal branch of St Vincent De Paul help other less-fortunate families this Christmas.
This beautiful song which was originally written for Blue Ribbon’s new Christmas HonkyTonk Musical.. ‘Honkytonk Ho Ho Hoedown’.
‘Christmas Wishes’ was audio-recorded as a voice-guide for the children of Blue Ribbon in Harmony Studios, developed into a nostalgic video shoot of Blue Ribbon actors and friends by 13 yr old Ben Carr in Cooneys Homeware Store, Letterkenny, was piloted and edited by Brian Kerrigan and Marty Curran, and finally, ‘Christmas Wishes’ evolved into a youtube video, ‘SVP Christmas appeal by Blue Ribbon’ , which asks Donegal people to donate to their local SVP store.
Following the success of Blue Ribbon’s St Vincent de Paul youtube hit, Just Believe, sung by Kyra McBrearty, the team are back in action You Tube style for Christmas 2014.
The video highlights the magic of Christmas, and upon sharing the video on local and social media, Blue Ribbon are delighted with the idea that fans and followers will spare a thought for local families who need a little lift this Christmas.
And again this year, they will donate small gifts of toys, jewellery, food or money to their local St Vincent de Paul Committee or Outlet, and other supportive venues such as WHoriskeys, Ramelton and Cooneys Homewares.
The appeal last year, through youtube and local schools and media, was such a highly successful experiment, resulting in hundreds of gifts, hampers of food donations, and the sum of 1680euro being raised by the appeal, that the team have decided to film a new video with PMC Medias for this Christmas, 2014.
Entitled SVP Christmas Appeal, Christmas Wishes, the idea is simple – when people see and share the video, they will help share and promote awareness of St Vincent de Paul’s work LOCALLY, and will be reminded to make a contribution, no matter how big or small, to their local committee.
Countless families in our area are facing a bleak Christmas, due to financial and usually temporary struggles. By spreading awareness of the magic of Christmas, and how every little helps, Blue Ribbon Arts and our local community can indeed make a difference.
With spiralling shares on facebook and Twitter, the video on youtube reached the attention of Charlie McGettigan, Leitrim (‘Rock and Roll Kids’ Eurovision winner), who immediately advised his Glaswegian based distribution firm ‘Emubands’ to launch it on iTunes with immediate effect.
The song, ‘Christmas Wishes by Brighdin Carr’ is now available to download on itunes for 99c, which is entirely in aid of SVP, Donegal. Brighdin and her team at Blue Ribbon, as well as the newly formed Lurgybrack NS School Choir performed the song at the recent Clanree Hotel Highland Radio Christmas Fayre on Sunday 7th.
The response to the choir and the song has been phenomenal, with high hopes that with every share and every download, local SVP reap the rewards of a shared endeavour to make this Christmas a good one for as many young children as possible.
With the organic spread of the video on facebook and youtube, Blue Ribbon Arts are delighted to collaborate with Karen Murphy Speech and Drama in an exciting challenge this Christmas.
‘Karen has been teaching the song to her classes this week in the lead-up to the Christmas shows, as have we at Blue Ribbon Arts.’ Says Brighdin Carr, Director and Songwriter. ‘As the song was originally only recorded as a ‘guide vocal’, I do not consider myself a ‘singer’, preferring to cast others in this role, but, on this occasion, both Brian Kerrigan and Marty Curran insisted on using my vocal on the project. However, now that people are beginning to hear – and like – my song, I stand by my own professional judgement, and hereby challenge anyone and everyone, school, solo, club or band , to record their own version of my song to upload on youtube or facebook for SVP as soon as possible to help us raise awareness and money for our local SVP this Christmas. Karen Murphy is on board with the prize – ‘Beat the January blues with a custom-planned Drama/Dance/Music Workshop for your school/club/party/etc’.. ‘
So here you go.. the simple rules are;
1. Download ‘Christmas Wishes by Brighdin Carr’ from itunes (99c) or simply view, post and share our youtube video version ‘SVP Christmas appeal by Blue Ribbon’.
2. Record yourself/club/school etc singing the song and upload on facebook or youtube, tagging blueribbonarts, SVP Letterkenny and KarenMurphy on your post.
3. Include either:
(a) Cheque for SVP on your video
(b) Invitation to people to drop off gifts/donations at your local SVP outlet or your own premises of choice
(c) At least ONE obvious Donegal landmark/building/location.
· Nb: You can record your own backing track or private message on blueribbonarts with your email address to receive the original backing track to the song.
· The winner is the video with the most recorded shares/views by 31st January 2014.
· The winner receives a workshop of their choice in drama/dance/music from 1oam-2pm on a day of their choice in January 2015 by BlueRibbon Arts and Karen Murphy Speech and Drama
Check online at St Vincent de Paul, or call into your local Community Liaison to see how you can help, simply choose a gift, wrap it, address it to ‘Christmas Wishes Appeal’ and leave at the St Vincent de Paul shop, Letterkenny. Let’s get together, posting and sharing, singing and bringing a little hope to some families in Donegal this Christmas.
On a separate note, last year’s SVP song, ‘Just Believe’, also written by Brighin, just made this year’s Christmas FM toplist, receiving airplay and inclusion in a new pilot album for selected airplay in more than 600 stores nationwide, including Spar, Eurospar, Centra, Eurogiant, Mace and more. This has led to a surge in youtube views of last year’s video, ‘Just Believe’ – which is also musically great news for SVP. Well done Kyra and Blue Ribbon.
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