By Jim Welte, Mill Valley Chamber
What an incredible, exhilarating moment it was to birth the initial 2022 Mill Valley Music Festival that left us breathless at times by the overwhelming exuberance and gratitude from the community.
As we head into year FOUR!!, we have worked extremely hard to make sure this event, first and foremost, wasn’t a one-off, for a variety of reasons.
Let’s set the table. We’re the Mill Valley Chamber. We wake up every day in service of community vitality. We pull every lever possible to make the 94941 the best version of itself.
We wanted the Mill Valley Music Festival to bring us all together for a thrilling, multi-genre, all-ages event surrounded with a bounty of delicious food, drink, art, kids’ activities and more on Friends Field behind the Mill Valley Community Center.
But while our creation of MVMF was primarily about who we are, it’s also about being honest about what we’re not. We LOVE live music festivals, especially those mammoth events to our north and south, but we’re in a separate lane than those events.
The Mill Valley Music Fest is a direct response to the knowledge that our amazing community has the love and wherewithal to share the joy of vitality.
Our Chamber members, primarily businesses, nonprofits and individuals, know who we are and what we stand for. But we haven’t always articulated that as well as we could to the broader community that doesn’t engage with our newsletters, blogs and social channels.
Is MVMF just a grand party that celebrates our affluent town? NOPE.
More than anything, MVMF is about continuing to be better neighbors to those within and around our community. Whether it’s our years-long support for the We Are One Marin Campaign highlighting BIPOC-owned businesses or our longstanding coverage of inequity in our town, from historic to much more recent and shining a light on discrimination among us, we’re committed to making our town more equitable. That’s not a heavy ask – it’s just connecting the dots toward opportunity.
That includes both workforce and affordable housing. We live in an amazing place, and we need more people, particularly young people who are willing to move into one- and two-bedroom homes, to live in our community. We are incredibly aware of our need to provide more diverse housing opportunities.
But what are we doing to provide direct support to our neighbors, you ask?
Good question: We’re leveraging the incredible generosity of individuals and businesses for good by turning Community Sponsorships into hundreds of scholarship tickets for students and artists – more than 300 have been distributed every year since the debut in 2022 – who might not otherwise be able to attend MVMF.
The more sponsors we get, the more people are able to attend on a scholarship ticket via a number of local nonprofit organizations.
The Chamber hopes to make a post-MVMF donation to a portion of proceeds to a trio of local institutions, including the Tam High Foundation the Hannah Project, whose mission is to boost the academic proficiency and college attendance of Marin City and other low income youth of color to promote a community culture that encourages achievement, celebrates heritage, and equips families and students with the knowledge, skills, and strategies to fulfill their dreams and ambitions.
Kiddo!, the organization largely responsible for funding art, music, dance, drama and poetry programs for the Mill Valley School District, is also a beneficiary, as is the Tam High Foundation, which has served as an inimitable backbone for high school programs across the board.
We’re also grateful for the support from the Sweetwater Music Hall, which is supporting some dazzling performances on the Sweetwater Stage, including Rose Paradise (@roseprrr): Twenty-something-year-old folk singing sweetheart whose debut album is set to drop this April; Flamingos In The Tree (@flamingosinthetree): Smooth indie rock band formed by college dormmates now celebrate the recent release of their sophomore album “as it falls into place” having since planted roots in the Bay Area; Meels (@meelsmusic): 2024 festival alumn returns to perform in support of new new debut album “Tales From a Bird’s Bedroom” released last summer; Marin School of Arts Band (@marinschoolarts): Student-led band from the Marin School of the Arts, who perform a range of covers and originals that stretch from classic rock to modern day hit songs; SUNDAY, MAY 11, 2025: Wreckless Strangers (@wrecklessstrangers): Six-piece music collective whose latest EP “Blue Sky Fantasy” was just released last fall to wide praise from fans; Iriefuse (@iriefusemusic): SF’s favorite dub-rock reggae band well known for performing at some of the country’s largest and most respected music fests Matt Jaffe (@mattjaffemusic): Singer-songwriter, guitarist and founder of the band Matt Jaffe & The Distractions, who was first discovered by none other than Mill Valley Music Festival alum Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads; Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of San Francisco: Collective of talented young musicians ranging in age from 10 to 18 years old that perform Latin jazz classics and original compositions, thanks to the Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble’s free year round educational program.
We’ll continue to strive for ways to use the power of this lil’ music festival to bring both sonic joy and more opportunity to our friends and neighbors.
Questions? Give us a shout.