Cause & Effect: Get to Know Parties4Peace
Parties4Peace’s objective is very simple: have a good time dancing with good people to good music, all while raising awareness and money for various causes. Now in their second year working together, California native Emilie McGlone and her New York-based partner Stacy Mourkakos make magic and good deeds happen by throwing a great party. The DJs play for free, the venues are free, and the volunteers happily donate their time, allowing all the proceeds to go directly toward the cause.
As I walk into her office, Emilie McGlone, the founder of Parties4Peace (P4P), is just wrapping up a meeting. She hardly misses a beat as she says hello to me and then immediately returns to speaking fluent Japanese. Emilie is one of those people who make you realize that you can always be doing more with your time. I catch her having just returned home after a 12-hour flight from Chile, where P4P worked to raise money to help save Patagonia’s nature from corporate consumption.
“The need is always first. We don’t just do a party, then decide where to donate money,” Emilie tells me. Previous years have seen P4P raise money for natural disasters such as Hurricane Sandy or the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. This year’s goal for P4P was to raise money to bring students on board for the Music & Art Peace Academy (MAPA) on the upcoming Peace Boat global voyage.
Peace Boat is an international nonprofit organization “working to promote peace and sustainability through educational programs,” teaching its participants sustainability, environmentalism and culture while visiting various countries to employ what was learned on the ship firsthand. MAPA is one of the programs run by McGlone on the Peace Boat and includes opportunities ranging from DJ workshops to studio production classes.
Parties4Peace was first established in 2002 when McGlone moved to Tokyo after residing in Chile. McGlone’s time studying abroad in Chile allowed her to discover two things: a love for electronic music and a love for Chile’s untamed stretch of nature, Patagonia. In Tokyo, P4P raised funds for Emilie to create a DJ exchange program between Japanese and Chilean DJs to become aware of Patagonia. Soon, she was throwing P4P events in both Chile and Japan that have led to DJ tours of sorts. “We have started a collective of artists in Chile and Tokyo that work with us, and they’re all focused on protecting nature through music,” McGlone explains.
It is incredibly powerful to feel the energy of compassion in a party, and even more so to use the proceeds for good.
When McGlone relocated to New York City to work for the US Peace Boat office, she met Stacy Mourkakos, who had spent the previous decade producing events, managing domestic festivals, and working at some of NY’s most popular dance music nightclubs.
“Meeting Emilie gave me the platform to use music and art to help make a difference in people’s lives,” says Mourkakos. “Parties4Peace and MAPA provide those same opportunities to artists and professionals within our dance music community. It is incredibly powerful to feel the energy of compassion in a party, and even more so to use the proceeds for good. Together we can make a real difference.”
Together, they throw Parties4Peace in the US to raise capital to bring new DJs on the Peace Boat, as well as other charitable projects. For the latest MAPA initiative, Mourkakos is reaching out to the dance community—including artists like Art Department, the Martinez Brothers and Mr. C—about how to get involved.
“The DJs who come onboard stand to gain not just an education, but also a cultural exchange with many new connections,” Emilie adds. Involving the DJs directly in sustainability programs, and allowing them to experience the nature they are saving firsthand, truly puts them behind the cause.
