November 21, 2008
Publication title: The Vancouver Sun, vol. -, Iss. -, pg. –
Place: Unknown
Writer: Unknown
Giving Gets McLachlan A Special Juno Prize
When Sarah McLachlan receives the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award at next March’s Juno Awards, don’t have a cow. Give one instead. In all her many years of giving to others, McLachlan has helped battered women, beaten animals and troubled kids. In 2004, when her World on Fire video was deliberately designed to cost just $15 to create, McLachlan donated what would have been a $150,000 production budget to a host of causes.
One of them is Heifer International, which simply gives farm animals to the world’s poorest farmers.
“They’re a great organization,” McLachlan said in an interview. “It’s easy to give quite a large gift — cows are 500 bucks — and you can even give bees. It’s just a great way to promote self-sustainability, and it’s a tangible way for people to give. They’re not just giving money, they’re actually giving something which directly affects a family, as opposed to giving money into a big vat.”
Long established as a superstar singer and songwriter possessed of a remarkable contralto, McLachlan took her first baby steps toward philanthropy in 1991, when she was invited by Terry David Mulligan to tour World Vision aid projects in Thailand and Cambodia. “It was just a huge eye-opener for me,” she said, “coming from a middle-class Canadian upbringing, going into rural hospitals where parents didn’t even have the understanding of inoculations, of basic health care. All these things I’ve taken for granted all my life, health care, clean water, food, a roof over my head — these kids don’t have that, and it was really a shock to my system.”She came home and began trying to fit fundraising for various causes into an insanely busy touring life.
Founding Lilith Fair in 1997, McLachlan dictated that a dollar from each ticket sold on the all-female tour would be spent in the community where it was generated. “Sometimes that was upwards of $30,000 every day,” she recalled. “Every city that we went to, we left a footprint of a donation to a women’s shelter. Very tangible results — sometimes that was keeping 10 beds open for the entire year.”
Closer to home, the money she made from Lilith Fair went into a foundation that, thanks to a close collaboration with Arts Umbrella, is now in its sixth year of bringing music education to inner-city students from Grades 4 to 12.
“I love attending the recitals,” McLachlan said. “Granted, they’re terrified the first couple of times, but you watch them progress. Now some of those kids are writing their own songs and playing in ensemble groups together and, yeah, it’s really, really heartwarming.” Giving, she said, just feels good. “I feel eternally thankful for the life that I have and the gifts that I’ve been given. I don’t want to take any of it for granted — I never have — and I want to give something back every day. I want to thank the universe.”
McLachlan’s “brand” is so powerful that her recent public service announcements for various SPCA organizations across the continent, featuring the poignant song Angel and shocking images of animal abuse (“Honestly, I can’t watch it myself, it’s too painful,” she said), has brought in an astonishing $20 million.
Yet, she adds, it’s not the big numbers that are needed in tough economic times.
“There are people in need in your own community. There are little old ladies who are struggling to get their groceries up to their apartment. You can help them. All these actions, whether small or large, have a ripple effect — they all lead toward positive change. I know that sounds really corny, but I really do believe it.”
