Last year Denver non-profit Drumming Up Hope set a Guinness World Book record for the longest stretch of continual drumming with a 73-hour musical marathon. Now, they’re vying to beat that record for a cause with 81 hours of continuous drumming this May 24. The purpose of the drumathon is to raise funds for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.
This Memorial Day weekend, for the third year in a row, Drumming Up Hope will drum for a cause by taking over the Thunder Mountain Amphitheatre in Loveland. The organization was started by local Tim Elliot in 2016 with the aim to lend support to charitable organizations across the state and promote music and education one beat at a time.
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“There was a drum shop in Fort Collins where all of us musicians congregated and they had an event each year where drummers would get together, make a donation and at a certain time we would all play the same beat,” explained Elliot. He continued,
“And while this was happening, other music stores around the country did the same thing. The money from the event was all donated to Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation. That shop eventually shut down and I asked the owner how we could continue the drumming event.
Elliot was in a band at the time that was scheduled to play a 24-hours of hope radio event to raise money for St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. He was so inspired and moved by the fundraiser that he ended up contacting the station manager after to continue it into a larger event. “I reached out to the station manager and he found out that the world record for drumming was 64-hours,” explained Elliot. “I was on board to beat that.”
In the first year, the Drumming Up Hope drumathon had 34 drummers in participation and caught the attention of 9-News. The second year, the event brought in 80 drummers and this year Elliot aims to go even bigger. Though the organization has given proceeds to strictly Colorado charities in the past, the drumathon will stick to its initial recipient and donate all proceeds to St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital.