My Weekend with St. Jude

I wrote a blog post a while ago about my discovery of family called The Mixer Community. Mixer is a streaming platform which was created for streaming video games, but has since expanded to include streams of radio and music and just about anything you’d want to sit and be part of. I have been blessed to be introduced to live musician performances on the platform, and feel like, although I still visit other types of streams, this is truly the niche that speaks to my heart.

Twenty-four Mixer live musicians of many different genres of music and instruments banded together to put on a 72-hour continuous stream of music – 3 hours each – as a charity event to raise money for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. To incentivize donations, streamers offered their song lists with a pledge amount needed in order to request a song. Other incentives, for higher pledges, included ‘live learns’ – where the streamer has to learn a song they don’t know while streaming during this event. Others offered a crazy bunch of incentives for huge donations like handwritten love letters, handwritten lyrics and CDs of original music, playing blindfolded, shaving their heads, dressing in costumes, adding layers of clothing… heck I can’t remember them all!

The original goal was set to raise $15,000. That was hit in about 12 hours. The goal kept being increased throughout the event – $25,000 then $40,000 and then $50,000. Each goal along the way would get smashed. The final 3-hour stream started with $42,000 +, and ended over the $50,000 goal!

I was not in every 3-hour segment, but I was in many of them. I discovered a handful of new musician streamers I didn’t know about and will since follow. I’ll admit that one or two of them weren’t my “cup of tea” but….. The two most important streams for me were Johnny & Heidi, whose slot was on Saturday evening, and Lady Desiree, my most favorite streamer, who finished the event. These are two streamers to which I have been loyal since discovering them.

I wish I could, in words, describe the emotions – the tears, the love, the joy – that was present throughout the event. It was truly that “you had to be there” to understand, but I promise you would have felt it too. Viewers at different times in different streams ranged from 200+ people to over 1000 people… all of them hyped and emotional and caught up in both the music and the experience.

In the crazy state of our world today, these musical streams have become a place for me to go to escape and just surrender to the moment and to just live in the moment. It is, in a way, my therapy – a place where I can go and just be authentically me (whomever I am at the moment) and feel safe and unjudged.

I could go on and on and on and on and yet, you truly “had to be there” to understand the emotional impact such a place can provide. From times of goosebumps to times of laughter (bald Johnny in a purple wig! a singing potato!) to times of tears, my heart overflowed throughout the weekend.

Each of these musicians donated their time, energy and talents. Moderators for the streams provided organization of song requests and donations, also donating their time and energy. We as a group who supported them are getting their accolades, but truly, they deserve our undying gratitude for the love for St. Jude’s and what it does for the children and for making it possible for us to be enriched by their talents!

(Oh, I also got to sneak away for another outside visit with my bestie on Sunday afternoon!)

Through the wonders of technology, I had the most incredible weekend getaway of my life!