TUESDAY, APRIL 26



Too Young to Die Fundraiser/ Maria's Community Grant
@Maria's Packaged Goods & Community Bar (960 W 31st Street)
8pm- 2am
Admission: Free

Too Young to Die is a project by Chicago-based artist Carlos Javier Ortiz who is using Kickstarter and other innovative ways to fund his ambitious project about youth that are victims of gun violence. Maria's is hosting this fundraiser as part of it's Maria's Community Grant program where the bar hosts a monthly event where proceeds of drink sales are donated to an artist project, group or organization.

We hope that participants and fans of Version festival will help realize this project by attending this event or making a donation online. As funding of the arts continues to decline, its up to us to help.

About Too Young to Die:
A war is underway in the United States today, with the nation’s youth suffering its most devastating consequences. It is an undeclared war, but it is as real and savage as any of the wars that claim the lives of soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. The casualties of this war come from a thousand bloody battles being waged nightly on the neighborhood streets of cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Memphis, and Los Angeles. Some victims are gang members; some are elementary school children—innocent bystanders walking to school or playing in front of their homes. Tragically, on average, sixteen youth between the ages of 10 and 24 are killed in the United States every day (CDC, 2009) as a result of gun violence. This is more than the number of American servicemen lost each year in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.  In Chicago in 2010, nearly 700 children were hit by gunfire, an average of almost two a day. Sixty-six of these children died. (NPR, 2011)
Read More and view the Kickstarter Video.