This year has not been kind to many, least of all it seems to The Tallahassee Live Music Community Charity Group. Their journey to opening their doors has been fraught with growing pains. The nonprofit got off the ground in January 2018 thanks to the vision of founder Christopher Godwin.

His dream of hosting live music performances to raise money for at-risk youth programming became a reality when Alicia Kilman came on board as executive director. Together, they took nine months to renovate the “The Riverfront” building overlooking the Ochlockonee river, now known as “The Warrior on the River.”  

In the midst of their first planned festival launch in October 2019, Hurricane Michael devastated the Panhandle and put all programming on pause. In March, they received their performing arts center license and were ready for a grand opening just days before getting shut down by COVID-19. Kilman says the board met immediately to see what they could do for the local music community during the pandemic, especially for musicians who were hurting financially. 

“We came up with the Recorded Features series,” says Kilman, who coordinated the socially distanced, live recording of invited musicians and bands. “We thought it’d be a great way to keep them motivated and help them develop the content they need so they can take it and market themselves. We release the videos on our charity group webpage as a fundraiser and reinvest our portion of the money in marketing to help them grow a fan base.” 

Inside their 3,500 square foot music hall, audio technicians mixed sound while a volunteer videographer professionally recorded the performances in high definition. Kilman says they left a week at a time in between acts to sanitize the space and have hosted numerous bands and individuals in the past few months. 

“So far we’ve raised $3,000 and reached 60,000 people with 30,000 impressions online,” says Kilman. 

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