United Way, Fort MacMurray

The United Way of Fort MacMurray is inviting local songwriters for the theme song competition that the organization is holding. The theme for the song competition is Change Starts Here, and the United Way is looking for a unique and catchy theme song that people will remember and that will catch on quickly. According to Communications and Community Impact.Director Russel Thomas “We’ve launched this idea of getting local songwriters to play around with that phrase, (Change Starts Here), and turning it into a song in hopes we can use it as the theme song for our 2015 Community Campaign. We found this year, that using video to tell the story of a couple of our agencies — we have three different Seeing Is Believing videos and an overall campaign video — the investment of time and effort into making those videos has been unbelievably successful. It cuts through in a way that is really, really powerful, and we’re hoping the music component does that as well.”

Fort MacMurray residents and local songwriters have until November 7 to submit their creations, and 3 finalists will be chosen by the United Way of Fort MacMurray to perform. Guests at the event will decide which of the 3 finalists win the top spot. Thomas went on to say that “These (VIPs) are the folks that are so passionate about the United Way. So getting them involved in the selection process just makes a whole lot of sense because they’re the most invested in what this is all about. And that includes the (member) agencies as well, because they’ll be at that event. It’s an opportunity for local songwriters and musicians to find a way of tapping into what the United Way campaign is all about and using their talents to do that. I suspect we’ll have a variety of different genres at the end of the day. I’m sure we’ll have a few rap selections, certainly some more folksy-type performers, and possibly some country as well.”