Take Action Tour’s cause this year is the Living The Dream Foundation, an organization that says that, “We make dreams come true for children with life-threatening afflictions while enriching their lives with the positive message and family of Living The Dream.” It’s incredible to see the work they’ve done, and The Devil Wears Prada has been making kids dreams come true all tour.
I had the opportunity to sit down with Kacie Quigley, chief operating officer of :LTDF. She was accompanied by Paxton, a young man from Connecticut, who had his dream day with TDWP. He and I got to discuss a few local bands and bonded over that, and Kacie told us how she had never seen snow falling from the sky, because she was from California. They were both extremely personable and after a few fumbles, we finally made it into the venue and found a place to sit down and do the interview.
Kacie had first started with :LTDF back in 2007, where she volunteered. Explaining she had, “a very sheltered” growing up, it was eye opening for her to be involved with this organization. A few years later, in about 2010, she started working for them, after going to school to become an elementary school teacher. “I just wanted to help kids,” she explained, and now she was doing it maybe not in the way she intended, but is doing it nonetheless.
Something that really hit home during the interview was how the two of them were explaining how :LTDF is a family, a support system. Paxton said that he’s gotten friend requests on Facebook from other kids who have had dream days with the organization and still talks to kids he met through it really often. It’s a network of kids who just love music; regardless of how much they hate being in the hospital, or how, “needles are a universal suckiness,” they have something really beautiful to bond over.
What really solidified this was the fact that last year Hawthorne Heights was on Warped Tour last summer, and Paxton was looking forward to it. Unfortunately, he fell ill and had to go to the hospital, and miss the show. Kacie, who had known him since when she first started volunteering for :LTDF, had the band sign a drum head for him, and he then received it in the mail. For her, “I didn’t even think twice, it was just like, ‘Oh, Paxton’s sick, I gotta make him feel better,'” which just goes to show how it really is just a family who support one another.
Kacie wants :LTDF to become a household name, to become synonymous with music and dream days. She wants a kid to know and be able to snap their fingers and spend a day with their favorite band. It’s a fantastic vision that isn’t too far off, by any means. In a short amount of time, the organization has skyrocketed and made countless dreams come true already.
What I didn’t know was the fact that Louis Posen, who started Hopeless Records, lost his vision. It was after he went blind that he started the label. He teamed up with Scottie Somers, a man with cystic fibrosis, and the founder of :LTDF, to get involved with the organization. The two of them have faced incredibly tough adversity, and risen above and beyond it, and if anything, that’s incredibly inspirational in and of itself.
This interview was eye-opening for me as well. I now see what I really take for granted, the fact that I am able-bodied and talk to bands just cos I can while there are kids whose absolute dream and fantasy is to do what I do. I am incredibly lucky, we all are, and sometimes it just takes a little discussion with two people who have either dealt with or helped those with a few extra hurdles, to have it finally sink in
Support and be thankful, more here.
