Raising more than just tips; Local musicians Garrett Hillary and Frank Buscato perform virtual benefit concert

SCALES MOUND–Garrett Hillary is no stranger to the music scene. He frequently performs in the Galena area as a solo act and also as a member of Just the Tips, a group that he and his friend, Frankie Bruscato, formed.

After a recent meeting with Andrea Young, a member of the Elizabeth Food Basket, who told Hillary that there is a shortage of food because of monthly pick-up services, Hillary decided to help.

There were musicians that Hillary follows and knows who have been performing benefit concerts on Facebook to raise tips as that is their only source of income.

“Thankfully, I am able to have the real estate side of things and that if I were to ever do this I would want to do it to raise money for others,” said Hillary. “I was like, alright I am going to do the same thing, but I am going to do it for the food pantries.”

Hillary shared the idea with Bruscato and then they began planning. The planning went pretty fast as they floated the idea on Sunday, and by Monday they picked the date of the performance for that Wednesday. Tuesday they had a radio interview.

During the performance, there were about 70 people viewing live and during those two hours Hillary and Bruscato raised $1,380. They took requests along with playing a standard set list.

“It was really fun,” said Hillary. “In those two hours, we were able to raise almost $1,400.”

Hillary said that some technical difficulties were overcome via a Skype video call that they had with a friend of Hillary’s from San Diego who is going to school to be an audio technician.

“It was the real deal,” said Hillary. “We had a big mixer board set up in my living room. Once we had the sound figured out, we had our significant others step away and watch it on their phones to see as we did test runs. ”

One of the difficulties was not having the audience to feed off of during the performance.

“It was really weird,” said Hillary. “You couldn’t see the people but they were typing at us and we really couldn’t see it. A lot of the time we are used to having that instant interaction in person and even people clapping. We would get done with a song and look at each other. It was really fun because there was nothing else we’d rather be doing.”

Hillary said that hanging out and playing music with Bruscato is fun because it is something that they are both really passionate about and it is enjoyable for them.

“We had people sending us texts, Snapchats and videos of us streaming on their big screen and their kids dancing,” said Hillary. “It was really cool. We had people from Florida, California, Arizona and Texas donating. There were people coming up on my Venmo making donations that I didn’t even know who they were.”

They have since had over 3,300 views of their performance on the band’s Facebook page.

“It was wild,” said Hillary, “We weren’t really expecting it. We thought maybe we might get $150 for each of the food pantries and then we were like ‘Holy cow!’ People were sending in hundreds of dollars, sometimes people who weren’t even from here. That was cool, too, seeing that people from out of the area who had been here, visited here and want to support the area, too.”

Hillary thinks that part of the reason that the concert was so successful was that others that follow their pages also had nothing to do.

“Because we had such a small following on our group’s page, we weren’t sure what to expect,” said Hillary. “When people tip you at a restaurant they know that it is going to you and might throw in $1 or $5. This was anywhere from $5 to $200. They knew that it was going to a good cause and wanted to help out.”

Hillary said that the proceeds are split between the Elizabeth Food Basket and the Galena Food Pantry.

Hillary and Bruscato have also been talking about a potential benefit concert once a year to raise money for local groups, but they are still discussing that.

“It would rather do it in person, of course,” said Hillary. “I was blown away by the response from people.”