All good things must come to an end—including the annual Virgin Mobile Freefest. Though this may not be the ideal statement for those living in Baltimore or hoping to travel to this event, Virgin plans to discontinue the festival for unstated reasons.
The fest provided a day of free live entertainment to the public in effort to promote awareness for homeless youth. It started in 2006 and held concerts to benefit the RE*Generation House program that shelters and mentors homeless young people.
Over the past five years, the fest achieved over one million dollars to help toward resolving this issue of homeless youth, while allowing the community to come together to participate in outreach and enjoy live music from popular indie, rap, and EDM artists like Black Keys, Nas, Santigold, and others. According to Stereogum, “Virgin Mobile Freefest has graced Baltimore’s Merriweather Post Pavilion for the past five years and has made a name for itself by booking a lot of indie’s biggest acts, but more importantly, it’s been notable because it’s done so while being completely free.”
The Virgin Mobile FreeFest will not take place this year, but Virgin will still be making a difference in the homeless community, as it had before while providing the festival. Virgin recently issued a statement regarding the cessation of the festival:
Virgin Mobile FreeFest, the signature award-winning music festival created by Virgin Mobile USA, will not return this year. We’ll be making a difference, in a different way. The festival has been held for eight years – with the last five at Merriweather Pavilion in Maryland as a free benefit to support homeless youth. FreeFest has been noted for its wonderfully eclectic mix of emerging and established indie rock, hip-hop and EDM artists, boasting line-ups that included Skrillex, M.I.A., Vampire Weekend, Nas, Ludacris, Santigold, Black Keys and many more.
Instead, Virgin Mobile will continue its tradition of helping make a difference and support the youth homelessness cause by making a significant donation directly to the Sasha Bruce RE*Generation House in honor of National Homeless Youth Awareness Month, established by Virgin Mobile USA in November 2007.
Virgin Mobile Music Festival began in 2006 and became a free one-day concert in the midst of the 2009 recession as many bands were cancelling U.S. tours and consumers were having trouble affording leisure activities. Virgin Mobile wanted to create something positive for its customers, music fans and the community in the face of so much economic turmoil and give back. Instead of asking people to pay for another music event, Virgin Mobile asked people to donate time and money to help in the fight against youth homelessness. As a result, the Virgin Mobile FREE.I.P. program was launched to award concert tickets in exchange for volunteer hours and in-kind donations to support the RE*Generation program to help homeless youth.
Since FreeFest’s inception, the public’s efforts have raised more than 75,000 volunteer hours, over 30,000 in-kind donations and more than 1 million dollars for RE*Generation non-profit partners. The most significant accomplishment by far was underwriting the construction of a new transitional living facility for youth, The Sasha Bruce RE*Generation House by Virgin Mobile, located in Washington D.C. The home opened in December 2012 and currently houses eight young people between the ages of 18-22. The House provides safe shelter but also educational and mentorship support and programs to teach young people about entrepreneurship and urban farming.
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