Montreal-based non-profit gets together with indie rock bands to raise money for charities

If you’re a fan of indie rock music, and you care about making a conscious difference in the world, then you should check out the Yellow Bird Project. I recently came across the website for this non-profit initiative, and after reading about why it was created and which bands were involved, it immediately became one of my favorite organizations. Oh, and the t-shirts are super creative!

The Yellow Bird Project was created by friends Matt Stotland and Casey Cohen, both who had a passion for music and a desire to turn that passion into something inspirational and quirky. They thought it would be great to get together with the bands, design t-shirts together and then sell the t-shirts to raise money for charities. Matt was good at computers, and Casey was a super salesman, so with their forces combined they started the project in 2006.






Here’s a video that shows how and why the whole project started:

It wasn’t easy to get connected with some of the coolest indie bands around since Matt and Casey didn’t actually know any, but luck changed for the duo when artist Devendra Banhart (known for his “freak-folk” music) decided to contribute a t-shirt design. The proceeds for his t-shirt would go to The Teenage Cancer Trust, a UK organization dedicated to helping teenagers and young adults with cancer. Here’s the design:

Other awesome indie bands soon hopped on the Yellow Bird bandwagon once they realized this charitable and artistic initiative. Here are a few of my favorites:

Bloc Party

The English band designed this shirt to support the Bread & Roses Community Fund, a foundation whose mission is to support social justice by raising money for health care, civil and human rights, a clean environment and peace.

Buy the shirt!

Don’t know the band? Here’s one of my favorite songs:




Metric

The Canadian indie-rock band designed this t-shirt to help MusicCounts, a music charity organization that provides music education to schools across Canada.

Buy the shirt!

Check out the band:




The Shins

The band designed this cool t-shirt to help support the Nature Conservancy, an organization dedicated to protecting and conserving some of the most ecologically important lands and waters in the world.



Buy the shirt!

One of the catchiest songs on the Garden State movie soundtrack:

These are just four of the indie rock bands that support the Yellow Bird Project. One band that supports the recycling efforts of Greenopolis is Wolf Parade. This band from Montreal, Quebec designed a t-shirt that raises money for Glass Casters Union, a non-profit organization that creates recycled glass ornaments with other indie bands. The profit made from selling the ornaments helps aid homeless and low-income people in the indie band’s local community.

Here’s an ornament made by the band The Thermals:

Now do you see why this organization is so unquestionably cool? It’s all about great t-shirts, great causes and an even greater connection through music. I hope that the Yellow Bird Project continues to get new indie bands to support them to keep music and the planet alive!