Mark Mooney wins Petaluma Service to Youth award

When Mark Mooney was in third grade, growing up in the Midwest, his mother dusted off an old clarinet from the closet, pressed it into his hands and nudged him into the school band. Thus began a lifelong love of music that has culminated in his role as president of the Petaluma Music Festival, a fundraiser for youth music programs in Petaluma.

It was this early musical foundation that motivated Mooney to get involved in local school music programs. Raising three kids in Petaluma schools, he wanted to help schools, which were struggling to fund extracurricular programs such as music.

“Music specifically is good for the brain,” Mooney, 66, said. “I went to the high school and said I wanted to get involved, how can we make this happen.”

For his community service, Mooney was honored with the Service to Youth award at the Petaluma Community Awards of Excellence. He will receive his award at a ceremony on April 20 at the Sheraton Petaluma Hotel.

Mooney attended UC Davis where he met his wife, Meg, and the couple moved to Petaluma in 1982.

“We drove around shopping for towns. When we found Petaluma, we said ‘This is it,’” Mooney said. “We had no job, no money, no brains, we just moved.”

Mooney was working a high-stress job as a bond trader, a career he would give up for one in web design in 1998. As his kids became immersed in local music programs, he learned about the financial challenges that high schools were up against. It takes around $75,000 to run a high school music program.

Mooney became involved in the Petaluma High School Music Boosters, which held Bingo night fundraisers.

“I thought maybe we should try something else,” he said.

He came up with the idea of having a charity run to benefit the music program, and coincide with the Chamber of Commerce Jazz Festival downtown. But the Chamber canceled its event, leaving space for a charity music festival. Thus the Petaluma Music Festival was born.

But it wasn’t a success off the bat. Despite having a big name headliner in Big Bad Voodoo Daddy, the first festival in 2008 actually lost $14,000, Mooney said. Eventually, the festival moved from downtown to the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds, and became a revenue generator.

Now in its 10th year, it contributes $60,000 for Petaluma-area school music programs.

“We got a lot better at putting on the show,” Mooney said.

Mooney maintains the website for the Petaluma Music Boosters and coordinates some 300 volunteers, many of whom work year-round on the annual music festival.

In nominating Mooney for the award, Cliff Eveland, director of the Petaluma Music Festival, said he works tirelessly on the marketing campaign for the event.

“Mark has been very busy, literally working around the clock on launching the music festival lineup marketing,” he wrote. “I think Mark deserves a huge pat on the back for scoring the Google grant for Ad Words. This is a major coup and will increase our online presence 10-fold.”

For Mooney, the festival is a labor of love, and one that comes with the reward of spreading musical education to the next generation.

“It’s totally a joy to do, from a management perspective, it’s an exciting challenge to corral and motivate 300 volunteers to make it happen,” he said. “I think that music is extremely important for children. It changes and shapes their lives.”

(Contact Matt Brown at matt.brown@arguscourier.com.)