OUR STORY

When the world was stunned by COVID-19, we discovered many of our neighbors faced serious food insecurity. In response, we joined forces with some friends to raise money for food banks. Building on the piles of old technology in our dad's closet, we bootstrapped eight old cell phones as video cameras to produce Cul-de-sac Concerts, a semi-professional live weekly concert series. 

 

Performed from a different cul-de-sac each week, the series has reached an international audience of more than 30,000, presented over 100 musicians, and raised over $50,000 to benefit local food banks. A nest of entangled wires and technology littered our family room floor for months as we tested and learned how to marry capabilities through experiential engineering. We practiced video switching, graphic overlays, and mixing the more than twenty live microphones used during every production. 

 

Beyond the technology, Michael and his collaborators led the core team that designed each week’s set, created ads for our sponsors, infographics for social media posts that helped expand our reach, and videos celebrating how donations impacted our beneficiaries and the community. 

 

Creating, incorporating, and running this organization, taught us how to finesse technology to bring a community together, engage with musicians, business owners, non-profit leaders, and volunteers. We designed systems, tested configurations, and learned from my many, many failures. We have learned how to manage volunteers with differing levels of motivation, the challenge of mixing business and pleasure, and how to envision a better future and then inspire others to help make it happen.  

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Through Cul-de-sac Concerts, we are building a platform that amplifies the good in the community. Using technology to bring us closer together, we enable neighbors around the world to help feed those in need

- one cul-de-sac at a time.