Obama's 100th Day & Pioneers For A Cure

Today is Israel's Independence Day, Yom Hatzmaut, and it's also the 100th day of President Obama's Administration. It's also the official launch day for Pioneers For A Cure.

We congratulate Israel on it's 61st Birthday, having overcome impossible odds to gain independence and maintain it day by day.

We congratulate President Obama as he leads the U.S. during these troubled economic times. Much has been made of his grassroots support during the campaign and his use of micro donations to reach his goals.

Pioneers For A Cure is also using micro philanthropy to help the fight against cancer.

We want to give props to Les C. of Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK for being the first person to make multiple downloads on the Pioneers For A Cure website. His total of $17.91 results in funds being targeted to Breast Cancer Research Foundation, Cancer patients of the Phyllis Newman Health Initiative, Chai Lifeline Children's Cancer Camp Simcha, Dr. Allyson J. Ocean Research Fund - Weill Cornell Medical College, Ellen's Run, Israel Children's Cancer Foundation, Susan G Komen for the Cure, and Israel Cancer Research Fund.

We hope this model of downloads for donations will help us achieve our goal of making a difference for those affected by cancer.

You Write What You Read

I read sports blogs. I read tech blogs. I read blogs about Israel and politics, but I write a blog about launching a cancer charity project, Pioneers For A Cure.

Here we are on the first day of February, 2009. The Pioneers For A Cure "launch" has entered it's final stretch. For a while, we thought we'd be out for the Holidays of '08, just in time for the year end donation cycle. Production cycles prevailed over other considerations, and we firmly set our sites on January 29th, 2009.

Israel's 61st Independence Day will be April, 29th, 2009. We wanted to launch 90 days prior, in order to set our quarterly distribution of funds to the receiving cancer organizations so that the first monies would be distributed on Yom Ha'atzmaut. Recently I realized that January, 29th was also the anniversary of my Uncle's passing. This made the date even more fitting for Pioneers For A Cure.

So now that day has passed, and our "Web Donation Store" isn't exactly, or in any other form, ready. The songs are ready, mastered and sounding great. The hats, tees, wristbands, etc... are ready, pink, blue and khaki motifs abound. What's not ready is the actual donation transaction mechanism. It's like a shopping cart, but for non-profits. You're not buying music. You're making a tax deductible donation to a non-profit, Joodayoh Arts. You get music as our gift in return for your donation. A database has to track which songs correspond to the charities selected by the artist to get the benefit from their song.

So, ultimately, this blog continues to chronicle the process of launching a cancer charity project, Pioneers For A Cure. Here we write about all the aspects of the music, the artists, the portraits by Mira Sasson, the iPhone Apps, the people who've inspired us to try this novel approach to fundraising.

Sometimes you just write what you read... (isn't there a football game today?)

3 Years Gone...

Three years ago today my dear Uncle Arie, (Z'L') passed away after his struggle with Pancreatic Cancer. He lived about a year and a half after the diagnosis and ensuing Whipple procedure. That's more than twice as long as most, and we were grateful for each day.

His legacy is huge. He supported many charities and had a policy that anyone who brings themself to ask for help should not be turned away empty handed. Perhaps they weren't completely satisfied, but they always got something for their trouble.

Arie taught me so much. My only Uncle, he taught me how to put on Tefilin as my Bar Mitzvah approached. As an adult, he taught me about business, especially not to waste and how to negotiate respectfully. He encouraged and supported me as I learned how to manage our family business. He once looked at a clock I had made, which demonstrated the stages of building a home. He told me that before I had that clock made there hadn't been such a thing in the world, and now there was. That simple support meant a lot.

This is why Pioneers For A Cure exists. A tribute to a wonderful person who appreciated his family very much. Before the Pioneers project, there might not have been a place for these old songs to raise money for cancer charities selected by each artist. There might not have been iPhone Apps to raise money for cancer charities. Now there are, pending Apple's approval.

Rest well Arie. We're still hard at work, as I sit now at the very desk he used so well for so long.

How's Your Hebrew?

We've been blogging about Pioneers For A Cure for some months now. We realize many Hebrew readers in Israel are left out of our English blogs, so we've translated them to Hebrew!
Thanks to the G-Man, licensed to thrill, and translate, we now have Hebrew versions of this blog and the Pioneer Producer blog.
Now if only my Hebrew wasn't so crappy, I'd be able to verify all the nice things he claims to have written.
Enjoy!

המפיק החלוץ
http://israelipioneerproducer.blogspot.com/

שירי סרטן לרפואה
http://israelicancersongs4cure.blogspot.com/

2009 A Year For Pioneers For A Cure

A Happy New Year wish to all! May 2009 bring real progress in the treatment and prevention of cancer.
This is the year we've been preparing for, and we're getting ready for our launch. Over 2 dozen old Israeli pioneer songs have already been recorded, with about 16 other artists having committed to record. More than half the material is mastered, and many tracks have begun to appear on MySpace and FaceBook.
Last week Bob Clearmountain and Keith Olsen sat with Pioneer Producer Greg Wall in Santa Monica to mix our "all in" anthem, Am Yisroel Chai. It sounds great and will be out there soon.
More about that here. http://pioneerproducer.blogspot.com/2008/12/hangin-with-homeboyz.html

Our first iPhone / iPod Touch App, FightCancer, is submitted to Apple, and we anxiously await it's appearance on the iTunes App Store. This App is a free full preview of two of our songs, one by New York Voices and the other by Karen Rosen, herself a cancer survivor. Here's a clip from Karen's song "Yelad Kat."

Pioneers For A Cure on YouTube - Seth Glass

Artists to get to sing in Hebrew

Among the artists we'd love to record;

Regina Spektor, Susanna Hoffs, Barbara Streisand, Madonna, Gali Atari among female singers.

Matt White, Art Garfunkel, David Broza, David Bromberg, Dag Nachash from the guys.

Already in the Can.

We've been really blessed with the awesome quality of the people who've already come into the studio and made amazing music with us. So far we've recorded songs with (in mostly order of appearance) Neshama Carlebach, Noah Solomon, Grammy Winner Lorin Sklamberg of the Klezmatics, Pharaoh's Daughter, Jon Madoff, Yossi Piamenta, Alicia Svigals, Frank London (another Grammy Winning member of the Klezmatics) and Rob Schwimmer with Joshua Nelson, Adrienne Cooper with Art Baily's "orkestra popilar", Y-Love and Diwon, plus other less well known but no less fun to record artists.