HAAM Benefit Boosts Health Care for Musicians
LZ Love and her band play the HAAM benefit at Whole Foods downtown. Photo by I-Hwa Cheng for KUT NewsBy Lucia Duncan
Today is the annual benefit day for the Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, a fundraiser with more than 175 live performances throughout the city.
Area businesses are donating 5 percent of their proceeds for the day or making a cash donation to HAAM. Those contributions will help the organization provide access to health care to low-income, working musicians.
“I came here with an abscess tooth, and I didn’t have any health insurance, and no money. And HAAM was there for me,” LZ Love, a soul and blues singer originally from Chicago, told KUT News. “And I’m healthier, and I look better too, right? So, hey, that’s what HAAM did for me.”
Carolyn Schwarz, HAAM’s executive director, says the organization provides health care to 1,500 members.
“They are self-employed people as musicians,” Schwarz told KUT News. “They may have a day job … working at a sandwich shop or delivering pizza, but it’s not the kind of job that gives health care benefits. And so, with an industry that brings in a billion dollars to our economy, and yet the people who make that economy make so little, HAAM is one way to give back to that community.”
HAAM aims to raise $250,000 through today’s benefit. That’s about half of its annual operating budget.
