Night of Shakti Rising

We want to thanks Shakti Rising for inviting us to their private volunteer appreciation and fundraising event. It was really fun, we got to play whatever we wanted, we had some great snacks, Jake got to sing some Doors and Animals, and we listened to some really moving talks about what these people have accomplished. It was a classic Varsity Strings night - The Night of Shakti Rising!

This was a Friday, so everybody but me and Jake were busy doing afterschool sports. Here we are making up the song list at the last possible moment. This is the result of excellent planning and machine like scheduling:

Sunset ballooners in Del Mar:

I do a few mandolin songs -

Valerie is the evening's host, there was a raffle and prizes. We didn't win anything.

Shakti Rising was really grateful to us for bringing the mic and amp to talk through, more people showed up than they expected and it was really useful. Even though it's just an audio mic jacked into a guitar amp, it works great. This has become Varsity Strings' most important purchase of the entire year!

The guests arrive - that's Debbi at the front left, hi Debbi! She invited us to this event after hearing us at the Children's Coalition meetings.

One of Shakti Rising's volunteers. This organization provides a home for abused or drug-recovering young women. It takes a very small amount of money to house them for a year, and it's mostly a volunteer organization.

A testimonial from a Shakti Rising woman, she was so thankful they were there for her when she had a lot of trouble in her life. She made everybody cry.

Then it got dark and the moon came out. This was really magical, it was like being inside a Harry Potter book.

So - TIME TO PLAY!

Jake & Max rip it up.

Then - SNACKS! I still don't know what this is. You eat it.

More snacks! These mushroom caps were our favorites. Voted #1.

More snacks! I had 6.

And after, right beside the Shakti Rising event there is this legendary McDonalds restaurant that is 1/2 McDonalds and 1/2 French Gourmet Bistro. It's like 0.5 and 0.5. It's called the Bistro Gourmet McDonalds. Never been here before, but come inside with us......



Here's what the food looks like -