Fort Worth musician Josh Weathers and his band raised more than $337,000 in four hours for families affected by the flooding in Central Texas.
Weathers, who had been scheduled to perform in New Braunfels and Orange Grove over the weekend, hosted a virtual charity concert July 7 after both of his other shows were canceled due to weather.
“Being a musician and being a Texas artist specifically, Hill Country is one of the heartbeats of Texas music,” Weathers said. “We were like, well, we’ve got to do something. We'll just turn it into a fundraiser and encourage people to donate.”
Initially, Weathers thought he might just livestream a solo concert on his phone like he had during the COVID-19 pandemic.
But he wanted to get his band involved, and, after making some calls, he had a new venue.
The Heights Church, which Weathers attends, allowed the band to perform in its Cleburne space and take advantage of its livestreaming set up. Friends stepped up to help with organization, graphics and web content.
After posting about the concert, someone reached out to his wife, Kady Weathers, on Facebook and offered to donate baked goods for the cause.
The family wondered if anyone else might have items they’d like to donate.
“My wife put a message out on Facebook and I mean, it went crazy,” he said.
A $12,000 riding lawn mower. A trip to Belize. Hog hunts. Duck hunts. A gumbo and shrimp boil for 100 guests. The number of donations was so large that on top of the bidding that took place during the livestream, the group opened up a silent auction page online.
It all came together so quickly that Weathers said he hasn’t had time to go back and look at how many people joined the streams on YouTube and Instagram. But he did know that the Facebook livestream had more than 100,000 views by the end of the concert.
“We were 10 minutes in and there was $10,000 already on the board,” Weathers said. “I thought, my goodness, that's $1,000 a minute. What's going to happen?”
Every dollar, Weathers said, will go directly to the families who were impacted by the flooding. He and his team are working with local authorities in Kerr County and the surrounding area to connect with families in need.
“Whether your house was destroyed or you lost your car or you lost a loved one and now you've got to take care of some funeral services that you were not expecting … We just thought what if we could take the financial stress off of these folks,” Weathers said.
The final fundraising tally won’t be known until after midnight when the silent auction closes.
