Music can change the world, but it won”™t happen by just playing or listening to it. That is the message of Barry Adelman, president of Y-2 Marketing and co-owner of Outdoors, a clothing store with two outlets whose passion for music is expressed in his nonprofit organization, Music for Humanity, which helps provide scholarships to Orange County youth with musical talent and which raises awareness and donations for other worthy causes through music.
“The vision of Music for Humanity is that we can contribute to a better world through music,” said Adelman, 59, a resident of Walker Valley. “By bringing together musicians and music lovers who are concerned about humanity and our planet we can use music to improve the world.”
To do this, the Music for Humanity Web site offers artists a chance to post their songs and market their CDs, while designating a charity that will receive a portion of the proceeds the artists receive from their music. “So we can enjoy our music twice,” said Adelman. “Once through listening and sharing the music and again as a portion of the money spent on music goes to worthy causes.” Besides donations, the group awarded its first scholarship last July.
The group was co-founded by Kurt Irmiter, a resident of South Carolina, who first posted the idea on line and teamed with Adelman to turn it to a functioning Web site and organization. In a sign of the modern entrepreneurial spirit, the pair worked on the idea together for nearly two years before meeting in person.
Adelman is not unaware of the challenges their vision faces, but he has experience in marketing and retailing that help inform his vision. Outdoors, primarily a clothing and footwear store, has a location in Chester in Orange County and another in Amagansett in East Hampton on Long Island. “Interestingly, in Chester, sales are up 5 to 10 percent over last year,” he said, a counterpoint to the generally downward trend of retail sales.
“When I first opened that store in 1978, all you had to do was put up a sign,” Adelman said. Now in an era of big box retailers and Internet sales, small stores are facing more competition than ever. “Its”™ unbelievable how much competition there is.”
“The key element here is a customer”™s club where club members get a guaranteed discount every time they walk in the door,” Adelman said, an arrangement he said is possible because the business owns the building. Sales are less robust in East Hampton where rent is high and foot traffic low this time of year. Adelman planned to travel there to help ensure the store will maintain through the winter months, “Then turn around in May,” he said.
While on Long Island, he will visit music teachers in the area and drum up support for
Music for Humanity scholarships. “Here”™s the plan,” said Adelman, “Tell them we want to have a fund-raiser, where a bunch of local merchants give 20-percent-off sales for a designated week or weekend to anyone who has this special discount card numbered, 1-1000. If we sell the cards for $10, we take in $10,000 with at least at half going to an East Hampton music high school scholarship.” The remaining funds would go for additional Music for Humanity scholarships and charities.
Adelman said the merchants would coordinate their sales to a less-than-peak season, such as early June to bring in more customers than normal to their stores, thus benefiting store owners, as well.
And he doesn”™t want to stop in East Hampton or Chester. “Just take that concept and multiply it throughout the country,” Adelman said.
That the concept is beginning to work was first evident last July when the Bill Perry Scholarship was awarded, named after a Chester native and blue”™s guitar maestro who died in 2007. The money was awarded to Kelly Vandemark, a Chester Academy graduate.
Adelman is himself a singer songwriter with music posted along with other artists at MusicforHumanity.org. Because Music for Humanity is a registered nonprofit, donations are tax deductible.
“We have to do a lot more,” Adelman said. “But probably 99.9 percent of the people on the face of the earth have been affected by the power of music on some emotional level at some point in their life. We want to take that power of music and use it to make the world a better place.”
