Judson seniors produce song to remember, help Las Vegas victims
When Tim Caffee awoke Monday morning news of the overnight mass shooting in Las Vegas hit him like a ton of bricks.
"It really tore me up," said Caffee, 21, a senior at Judson University in Elgin majoring in worship arts. "I was really angry and frustrated. ... I wanted to turn that anger and that frustration into something beautiful instead of adding to the chaos."
Caffee, from Fort Wayne, Indiana, was inspired to express his emotions through music. He wrote and performed a song, "For Nevada," which fellow Judson senior Josiah Vik produced into a YouTube video to help raise support for the Las Vegas Victims' Fund crowdfunding page.
They released the song through the free music streaming website Noisetrade, allowing anyone downloading it to donate tips to the victims' fund, which has raised more than $8.7 million to help the survivors and families of victims. They also have used social media to reach out to the Judson community for support and comfort.
Authorities report 58 people were killed and 527 injured when a gunman opened fire on a music festival crowd from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.
"We are sick of the brokenness that presents itself every single day in shootings, bombings and hate ... the weight of it all is almost overwhelming," said Vik, 22, who is from Poplar in northern Wisconsin, and majoring in music business and entrepreneurship.
The duo have collaborated on recording projects before in Judson's Dark Room Studios, but this was the first time their music was fueled by a tragedy.
"We are creative, skilled. ... The immediate thing that we can do is to use our gifts to lift people up and to call out things that are wrong," said Caffee, who hopes to join a church ministry after graduation. "We want to encourage people to love, sing, cry and stand with Nevada, the victims and the families of the victims. We just want to put something out into the world that is a response, but that also introduces beauty into something horrific. It doesn't matter where you stand. The right response is to love people and the wrong response is to use tragedy for personal agendas."