Shelter Fest Brings Tonic Sol-fa, Su Fu Du to Madison

Shelter Fest 2010 was the nicest summer night of the year in Madison. Look at that sky—after Thursday night's soaker, not a cloud left. Look at those trees—standing straight instead of leaning at a 30-degree angle in another thundering, prairie-scouring gale.

Oh yeah, and look at that a cappella group:

Mark McGowan, Greg Bannwarth, Shaun Johnson, and Jared Dove—that's Tonic Sol-fa singing at Trojan Field, right here in Madison Friday night!

No instruments but the tambourine and the egg. No pyrotechnics or fancy stage pieces—just four men putting their voices to one of the finest uses possible.

Tight harmony, high energy, singing as if nothing in the world matters more than hitting that note... totally groovy.


Su Fu Du banged the drums and boogied to open the show.

The crowd was duly appreciative. Around 500 people—including (memo to Chamber!) visitors from Texas, Arizona, Kentucky, and Iowa—enjoyed the music and the opportunity to throw some money into the kitty to help Habitat for Humanity build houses. Great show!

T-Minus 24 Hours to Tonic Sol-fa -- Come to Madison!

24 hours from right now, The Su Fu Du Drumline will be rocking Trojan Field, warming up the crowd for Shelter Fest's headliner, a cappella superstars Tonic Sol-fa. If you haven't picked up your tickets yet, get down to Mochavino in downtown Madison and do so! $15 a pop for some really good music... plus you'll be helping the local Habitat for Humanity chapter put another family in a good, safe, sturdy home.

And if you're not in Madison, well, get here! Come tomorrow, buy your ticket at the gate, and come have a good time.

Madison weather forecast: raining right now, but breaking up in the west as I type. Tomorrow's forecast: wet in the wee hours, chance of t-storms through lunchtime, then, by showtime at 6:15 p.m., partly cloudy, 79°F, and east wind at a tickling 2 mph.

Shelter Fest! Get here! You'll love it!

Habitat for Humanity Sponsoring Brush with Kindness... and Tonic Sol-fa Concert!

Learn more with hyperlinks!

The Madison Daily Leader posted a story online last night about our local habitat for Humanity chapter sponsoring two great programs: the Brush with Kindness project, which provides affordable paint and clean-up services for homeowners; and Shelterfest, this summer's fundraising concert featuring Tonic Sol-fa.

The story mentions a couple of websites where folks can get more information. Alas, no hyperlinks. You know how I feel about hyperlinks. So permit me to act as the HTML-adjunct to the paper and demonstrate how easy and useful hyperlinks are.

Here's the complete story. All I'm changing is adding hyperlinks where appropriate. Compare with the original, then tell me which is more useful:

Local Habitat group offers Brush With Kindness
By ELISA SAND, Staff Reporter 03/19/2010

East Central Habitat for Humanity is launching a new local Habitat program -- Brush with Kindness.

The new housing repair program is aimed at providing painting, yard cleaning and cosmetic repair services to low income homeowners in need.

Through the program, Habitat for Humanity volunteers use donated materials on the selected homes.

Barb Johnson, executive director for the East Central Habitat for Humanity affiliate said the local board of directors hopes to select three local families who will benefit from the program.

Applications are now available and can be accessed through the organization's Web site (www.habitateastcentral.org) or by calling the office 427-9906 to have an application mailed.

Johnson said all applications are due by May 1.

"At that point in time, they'll go and look at people's homes, they'll bring some to the board of director's meeting anonymously and then the board will select, from that report, who they feel would benefit the most from the program."

Johnson said the goal of this program is not to assist a family in making their home more marketable.

"We're not going to help people flip their houses," she said.

Homeowners selected are asked to sign a commitment that states they plan to live in their home for the next two years.

Homeowners are only asked to pay a $100 administrative fee up front. But, Johnson said, the cost for the project is taken into account.

Half the cost is forgiven after the first year, she said, and the other half is forgiven after the second year.

Local donations have already been made in support of the project. Johnson said so far the Sioux Valley Energy roundup program has awarded $1,000 toward ladders and scaffolding and the Madison Community Hospital has donated $500 for safety equipment.

"Helping people repair and maintain their homes fits in seamlessly with Habitat's core mission of making decent, affordable housing available to low-income families," Johnson said.

The Brush With Kindness program is being done this year in addition to continued fund-raising efforts toward the construction of another Habitat house.

Johnson said the next partner family has been selected. The recipient is a single, widowed mom with two children. The goal is to build, again, in the Williams addition.

The construction timeline has not been set at this time, however. Johnson said the local group continues to await news on grant applications that will fund the project.

"The biggest one we won't find out until June," she said.

As for fund-raisers, Johnson said, Shelterfest is once again in the planning, this year on July 30 at Trojan Field. It will be held indoors at the DSU Fieldhouse in case of poor weather.

Habitat Board Member Erin Heidelberger, who is leading up the organization for Shelterfest said the event will begin at 6:15 p.m. with the Su Fu Du drum line, which will open for Tonic Sol-fa a Minnesota-based acapella group that performs pop-inspired music.

Tickets will be $15 each and children 5 and under are free.

"All proceeds will go to East Central Habitat for Humanity," Heidelberger said.

Tickets will be available soon on the Tonic Sol-fa Web site. A link to that web site is available at www.shelterfest.com.

Tickets will also be locally available beginning in May. Heidelberger said right now board members are working on securing concessions for the event and sponsors.


©Madison Daily Leader 2010

Notice, the original story makes reference to two specific websites where people can get more information. Give people a link, they can click right to it. It's just a matter of seconds, but online, seconds matter, and users are much more likely to click a link than retype it or even copy and paste it.

By the way, it took me less than five minutes to scan this article, identify the link-worthy nouns, Google the websites, and insert the links. Five minutes, and we quintuple the informational and functional value of the article. Cool!

Habitat for Humanity Completes Another Madison Home, Thanks Volunteers

The East Central South Dakota chapter of Habitat for Humanity just finished its 2009 house in Madison. Happy owners Nicole and Jacob Williams officially closed on the house yesterday. They and their daughter McKenna are moving their stuff into their new home on the north side of town just in time for Christmas. The Williams family came to the Habitat volunteer thank-you dinner to express their thanks in person:



The Habitat chapter took time to extend thanks to a lot of people, including 2009 Supporter of the Year Shawn Miller of Madison. He's busted his chops for Habitat, putting in hundreds of hours on two houses and serving on the board (some might argue that board meetings are more taxing than shingling).

Also offering thanks to the volunteers were the DSU Singers, Barb Hegg's intrepid student singers, who took time off from studying for finals to come perform some a cappella Christmas music, including a lively little PDQ Bach holiday arrangement.

If you missed the dinner, you can check out some more pix here. And you can consider yourself invited to next year's thank-you dinner: all you have to do is donate... and warm up your hammers for the 2010 Habitat house!

Habitat for Humanity Opens New Office on Main Street

Super-cool video blog report!

Our local Habitat for Humanity chapter has a new habitat of its own. The East Central South Dakota Habitat for Humanity chapter, serving Lake and Moody Counties, will now operate out of a prime location right on Main Street—217 N. Egan, sharing space with Jay and Sherry Van Liere in their Lakeview Realty building.

Chapter exec Barb Johnson is quite pleased with the new digs:


Barb and the Habitat board will keep plenty busy this year: Habitat has a house to build in Madison this year:


Hand me my hammer, let's build!

Now some people don't quite get what Habitat for Humanity does. They think Habitat is a charity or (worse!) a government welfare program. Far from it: Habitat is a Christian ministry, putting the Word to work. Habitat calls it "the theology of the hammer" and "the economics of Jesus." The families Habitat builds for pay a fair price for their homes, in sweat and money. Folks who buy Habitat homes sign a contract with Habitat requiring that they put in hundreds of hours of labor, either on their own homes or on other Habitat projects. On top of that work, homeowners then pay a mortgage, just like the rest of us. The difference: they pay that zero-profit, zero-interest mortgage (there's some radical Christianity for you!) right back to Habitat, which then uses that money to build more homes.

Habitat homes are supposed to be modest, no more than 1050 square feet in North America. Building small keeps costs down and focuses on what's important: giving working people affordable options to get out of substandard rentals and housing and under a decent, sturdy roof.

The complication around here: Madison's zoning rules require a minimum size of 1000 square feet, and some subdivisions impose rules requiring big garages and other "amenities" that bloat the building budget just to "maintain property values." That makes it a little tough to find a suitable lot in Madison for a house that truly fulfills Habitat's mission.

Folks need to recognize that small houses are not a detriment to our community. Habitat houses are an improvement over whatever the families buying them had previously. Habitat houses add to the tax rolls, and they give that many more families the pride and responsibility of homeownership, not to mention health, safety, and stability for the kids, that strengthen the whole community. You don't need 1500 square feet of house hiding behind a giant garage to achieve that. (Maybe the folks who brought the economy crashing down by buying more house than they needed will realize that and change the way our culture thinks of housing.)

If you'd like to put your faith into action, drop by the Habitat office downtown. Give Barb your number, and when Habitat's ready to build this summer, your phone will ring.

Shelterfest! Saturday! Madison!

Oh yeah, did I mention...


Ten hours, five bands, $5, money goes to Habitat for Humanity—that's Shelterfest!

Pile your friends in the car and come to Madison (Hope Studios, 211 SE 4th St.), noon to ten p.m., tomorrow today!!!

Shelterfest to Raise Money for Habitat for Humanity...

...and my wife gets airtime!

While some men think it's a compliment that they recommend their wives enter topless oglefests, I prefer to think a higher compliment is to urge people to listen to my wife. And this morning, KJAM joins me in that compliment, as they post the audio of part of Matt Groce's phone interview with her about the upcoming Shelterfest music festival, September 6 here in Madison.

Erin hasn't been blogging much at Prairie Roots lately, largely because she's been investing a lot more time in calling bands, lining up sponsors, and setting up the music festival website. Ah, what a pleasure to be married to a smart, capable woman!

Shelterfest Music Festival Plays Madison September 6

We're not Bonnaroo or Farm Aid yet, but we're working on it...

More big doings in Madison: Shelterfest, a ten-hour outdoor folk/rock/indie music festival, takes place Saturday, September 6, at Hope Studios. The music is free, but the Shelterfest crew will be urging all in attendance to donate $5 to support the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity. And hey, $5 for ten hours of live music is a heck of a deal!

My wife and our friend Michael Hope have been working on lining up bands and sponsors. Scheduled for the stage so far are Welcome to the Cinema from Brookings, John Goraj from Sioux Falls, and They the Down Low from Minneapolis, with more to come! Stay tuned to the Shelterfest website and the Facebook page for updates.

Just like the DQ Miracle Treat Day, here's a great way to get out, have fun, and do some good for your neighbors in the process. Plus, it'll be the first weekend of the school year for DSU, so what better way to welcome back our 2000+ college students than with some good outdoor music? Don't just tell your friends; haul 'em to Madison for Shelterfest September 6!