McHenry mayor ‘100%’ in on serving to metropolis fundraise with nation music competition

MCHENRY, Illinois (CBS) – Talk about placing the enjoyable in fundraiser.

On Friday evening and Saturday evening, a northwest suburb will host two profit live shows to pay for neighborhood upgrades.

They’re renovations the town of McHenry couldn’t in any other case afford.

Morning Insider Lauren Victory explains how the mayor’s intelligent math made the music occur.

The buzz in McHenry is all about nailing the numbers to go away this weekend’s large nation live shows with a mega revenue.

McHenry’s personal mayor, Wayne Jett, is orchestrating the music cash maker. His non-profit, the R.I.S.E. Up Foundation is bringing nation stars like Brad Paisley and Dustin Lynch to city. The hope is followers take their wallets with them.

“I think everyone’s pretty excited in the community,” mentioned Jett, explaining that everybody locally advantages from the profit live shows. It’s all within the identify R.I.S.E. Up which stands for “Revitalize, Invest, Succeed and Encourage.”

McHenry hosted one other live performance fundraiser for R.I.S.E. Up final yr. It price about $600,000 to throw. Ticket and alcohol gross sales together with sponsorships coated the bills with about $200,000 left over. That revenue paid for a neighborhood splash pad that is now underneath building.

“Something like this [the splash pad] definitely betters the community. It’s something for kids to do, families to come to,” mentioned Jett.

This yr’s proceeds pays to revamp McHenry’s Riverwalk space. Plans embrace recent landscaping, an ice skating rink and an amphitheater. Cute, tiny outlets with a low sq. footage will cost low lease to budding companies within the space.

“It’s kind of an incubator to be able to get those people [entrepreneurs] to make that jump,” the mayor mentioned.

CBS 2 requested Jett why different cities and cities do not take the identical method to funding neighborhood tasks that their budgets do not have room for.

“It’s kind of tough to say but I’m kind of one of those people that I’m 100% in,” mentioned Jett who wasn’t kidding, as a result of it seems that he personally loaned greater than $200,000 to his basis to get 2022’s stay music fundraiser off the bottom. He did the identical factor for 2021’s occasion.

“Without the money up front, you can’t get contracts going,” Jett mentioned, explaining the rationale for the mortgage. “After we get our revenues back through ticket sales or sponsors, I reimburse me personally…with zero interest.”

The objective is increase between $300,000 and $400,000 for the downtown Riverwalk undertaking, simply from this weekend’s live shows. 

The leisure occasions will price a whopping a million {dollars} however no less than 1 / 4 is already coated by sponsors plus ticket gross sales are raking in money. Both reveals are almost sold out.