We all know the saying, “when life gives you lemons…” Well, amidst all the world chaos, I wanted to let you know that lemonade (or in my case music) is still being made.

It has been a painful few weeks as a recruiter, and a human, to see the trail of devastation caused by COVID-19. We’ve received hundreds of phone calls from candidates that have been made redundant and stood down from their jobs. Everyone’s lives have been altered, and some have had their worlds completely flipped upside down and now find themselves in unchartered territory.

Today, I want to share the story of Sarah – not a candidate of mine – but one of my oldest friends. Who up until 2 weeks ago was living her best life in Bryon Bay. She now finds herself crashing with me as she is without a home, a job and to be quite frank, if I was her I would be having a monumental breakdown. Despite all this Sarah radiates an infectious positive energy and refuses to let anything dampen her vibe – she’s amazing. In the 20 or so years that I’ve known her, Sarah has always had her sight set on singing and performing (I’m not just saying this because she’s my friend) and she is pretty bloody incredible.

You would usually find Sarah busking or getting the crowds going at pubs and bars. However as we all know, we won’t be stepping foot into our favourite watering holes and sharing the experience of live music for the foreseeable *sobs*.

But what if we could still enjoy Sarah’s music together? *Insert lightbulb moment here*

This last weekend (while we were all getting used to weekends in lockdown) saw my best bud/fellow recruiter/housemate, Shannon Stobbs, and I take off our recruiter hats and start a PR #sidehustle. We wanted to bring some love, positive vibes and the sounds of Sarah to the suburb of Manly, whilst practicing social distancing. We wanted to make music, even though life was dishing out a large serving of lemons to everyone right now.

The seed was planted and #SarahFest was born. Our idea started small, we’d get Sarah to play a set from the balcony to our neighbours. Who doesn’t love a good Sunday sesh? I got my creative juices flowing, found some coloured pens, whipped up a poster and stuck it up on our building notice board, calling for our neighbours to join from their balconies with a beer at 4pm.

But, we knew we capable of more. So after a few glasses of wine we found ourselves with a business name (Unit 5 – the number of our apartment), PR email address and logo to drive our goal of sharing Sarah’s talent with all of Manly. This was the real deal. A little dutch courage later, and emails had been fired off to Manly Community organisations and our project #Sarahfest was in motion.

Big Milestone

We were extremely grateful to gain the support of Manly Social. They wanted to live stream Sarah’s Sunday sesh to their 12,500 Facebook followers!! WOOOOW. High fives were dished out all round our apartment.

So 4pm Sunday rolled around and Sarah took centre stage on our balcony. What a performance she put on. After each song claps could be heard from the surrounding buildings and people gathered (in groups of no more than two and at least 2 meters apart!) on the street below to enjoy #SarahFest.

Unit 5 (PR pros) are thrilled to announce that the event was a huge success and for the two hours that Sarah played, all the corona chaos was put on pause. She reached over 3,300 viewers in total, across Australia, America, Canada and the UK – which is damn impressive. The people of Manly and beyond have asked her to play again this week and we are excited to keep this rolling for as long as we can. So, pull out your diaries and block out Sunday between 4pm-6pm! Join us on Facebook and enjoy the music.

This proves that if we step outside our usual comfort zones and think outside the box, good things will come out of this strange time. Even when life gives you lemons, there is always lemonade to be made. My hope is that we will be stronger as communities and have a deeper appreciation for the simple joys that others bring to our lives.

To check out #SarahFest you can click on this link – https://www.facebook.com/SarahPardoeMusic/videos/553433938633086/