Boarded Up Foundation
Boarded Up Foundation is a non-profit organization focused on providing free resources and opportunities to unsigned music artists. Boarded Up was created by Ron Wilson and Joey Hamende - the owners of Dallas Staple; Louie Louie's Piano Bar. The two started the non-profit when Louie Louie's was mandated to close down and board up their windows during the height of the covid pandemic in 2020 (hence our name). The closures of bars & restaurants in Deep Ellum caused financial hardship to a lot of live music artists that relied on performing as an occupation. Boarded Up Foundation started out as a resource to aid the displaced artists, but years later it has continued to grow. As of 2023 Boarded up has provided over 190 professionally shot & edited live-set music videos . . . and counting.
Our Mission
Our main goal is to propel the careers of independent music artists by offering them free services that will showcase their talents, as well as find them more work. We also believe in the preservation of music, all music deserves the chance to stay alive. We feel strongly about aiding these artists and doing what we can for the developing culture of the music world.
*From Left to Right and Top to Bottom*
Ronnie Wilson, Anthony "Oddy" Williams, Paul Trausch, Matt Tomlin, Sam Wilson, Luis Espino, Robert Mounce, Joey Hamende, Gabrielle Brisco, Rare Orion, Jasmin Mirik
Our Team
We are lucky and grateful that our foundation has grown and we now have a very special team that works in specialized areas of our cause. Our team consists of our founders, office manager, social media technicians, video editors, sound engineers, camera operators, and photographers; all of whom often collaborate and work together and are not solely confined to their positions. We believe this makes our team stronger and adds to our creative ability to reach our collective goals, as well as allows our staff to grow and dabble in their areas of interest.
Internships at Boarded Up.
We also offer internship opportunities to students who are interested in audio/visual editing and social media marketing. We provide them with hands on opportunities to learn from our team and work on our videos. The hours spent at our office go towards their class credits from local colleges.
