Lewis Greer, David Benoit, Terilyn Joe (emcee), David Pack, and Charles Marsala (host, emcee, and Mayor of Atherton) before a Heart of Silicon Valley benefit concert

Back near the end of 2001 I met a fellow named Jeff Pollock for lunch. A mutual friend had introduced us electronically, so when we met in person for the first time our conversation was fairly wide ranging as we searched for common ground.

We found it pretty quickly in music, something we were (and are) both passionate about. Jeff shared with me that he and some others had been kicking around the idea of doing house concerts in order to raise money for relief efforts for the attacks of 9/11. As we talked further, he asked me if I'd like to be involved in that.

I thought to myself, "Let's see. Doing good through good music. Yeah, I think that's a fit!" So I got involved and actually became an official co-founder of Heart of Silicon Valley.

Since then HOSV has helped raise more than $200,000 for non-profit organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area by mounting about 17 events. We've had a lot of extraordinary help, generous contributions of time, money and resources from individuals and businesses, and we've presented some amazing music.

Just a couple of weeks ago we put on a concert to benefit PACE (Pacific Autism Center for Education), and the performers were David Benoit and David Pack of Ambrosia fame. Either one on their own would be a headliner, but together they were really incredible. I wish I could have captured some of that for you, but the beauty of the music was only part of the story.

Both of the Davids were great crowd pleasers and very entertaining, but that evening they shared not only their talents and the fruit of years of working hard at what they do, they also shared their hearts. (The same could be said for the side men who played with them, bassist Trini Sanchez and drummer Jeff Olson.) These are artists who love to do music and also love to do good with their music.

That's a big part of the heart of HOSV, and it is at the very core of Do Good Music.

So let me encourage you to support those artists and do all you can to be like them. You may never be able to play piano like David Benoit, sing like David Pack, or write like either one of them, but whether you can or not you can do this: you can make good music and use it to do good. And that's good music.