| Amber Harvest |
 Following many years of performing and traveling in America Dougie came across a wonderful project known as the Food Bank. He was invited by Bob Randels (Food Bank of South Central Michigan) to perform at a concert in Battle Creek, Michigan which was a fundraiser, where members of his audience were encouraged to bring along food which was then distributed to those most in need. Dougie was really impressed by the organisation and its ethos and was inspired by this initial event to find out more about the Food Bank network in the USA.After long deliberation he felt that the time was right to do something along these lines, in conjunction with his audiences here in Scotland, as well as other parts of the UK. Dougie felt that the 2006 Perthshire Amber Festival would be the ideal place and time to launch Perthshire Amber Harvest. He looked very hard at the FareShare and Cyrenian sites and thought their Good Food in Tackling Homelessness Programme suited his idea, in providing the means to handle any food he could collect at his concerts. FareShare are a long established charity that collect and distribute food to those that are most in need. The FareShare Scheme is administered in Edinburgh by the Cyrenians (Scottish Charity Number 11052).
All are hopeful that our efforts during the Perthshire Amber Festival can lead to good positive things in helping homeless and disadvantaged people to be given a hand up, to be better able to tackle issues in their lives and to get back to living productive and meaningful lives. When attending any of the concerts this year please bring an item of non perishable food (tins, packets, boxes and jars) to add to collection. Lets see if we can beat last years total and help even more of the people who need it most. Every small effort helps! |
At the 2006 Festival there were baskets for collecting all the food. Over the four days over 700 tins, packets, jars and boxes of food were donated by people attending. At the close of the final concert on Sunday evening Dave Berry from Edinburgh Cyrenians joined Dougie on stage, along with Westminster MP Pete Wishart and one particular fan (Duncan) who had taken the whole concept to heart, to receive the food that had been collected.
This was only the start of the relationship between Dougie and the Cyrenians FareShare Project through the “Harvest” concept. The collection of food continued in 2007 and 2008 Amber Harvest to reap way over 1000 items of food!