Community
6 March, 2025
Concert for a cause
THE Music Homestead Let’s Talk Country Music Festival brought an evening of great music and mental health awareness to Mortlake over the weekend.
The festival, hosted at Ray Anderson’s Music Homestead just outside Mortlake, saw a steady flow of festivalgoers who helped to raise around $1500 for the dedicated efforts of the volunteers behind Let’s Talk Foundation.
Let’s Talk Foundation is a not-for-profit mental health foundation which aims to encourage anyone struggling to feel empowered seeking help, and create community-led awareness surrounding mental health and its prevalence.
The festival hosts a range of local musical talents in addition to speakers who help to shine light on the topic of mental health, promote a willingness to seek help, or even just be a shoulder to lean on for those in need.
Let’s Talk Foundation representatives were available to fulfil their mission of breaking the mental health stigma through discussion and visibility.
Brochures were also handed out providing mental health statistics and information on who to contact if help is needed, and to provide information supporting farmers who are struggling during difficult times.
Among those in attendance was Let’s Talk Foundation co-founder Jane Fitzgibbon, who said it was heart-warming to see so many people rally behind the cause.
“We’re sharing the message of breaking the mental health stigma with the whole community who has been involved in having this performance,” she said.
“It’s an amazing thing.
“We have to change the culture of talking about our mental health, it’s so imperative to make a change because so many people are suffering.
“One in three people at some point struggle with mental illness – we need to support each other, seek help and make our community more integrated.”
Ray Anderson said he was proud to support Let Talk Foundation’s ongoing work.
“I tell the people at Let’s Talk the same thing every year — we know who we lose, but they don’t know who they’re saving,” he said.
“There are people who I have personally lost to suicide, but we’re none the wiser on who is saved.
“They deserve a lot of credit.”
Read More: Mortlake