The story began in 2016, where a group of young musicians in Kota Kinabalu came out with a charity project where they write and produce a Christmas album and 100 percent of the profit made from sales of the album went straight to a local shelter home for Children called Jireh Home, Tuaran to help the underprivileged children. They called their album "Bonfire Christmas Tale" as a meaning of sitting down, sharing stories to one another and sing together like we always do around a bonfire.It is a symbol of music, unity and a sort of comfort. A total of 5 bands wrote six Christmas song and compile them into a Christmas album. The time span was very limited as the idea came up on early November that year. The writing and recording took three weeks while they spent the remaining week of the month to design, package and produce the album.

The Bondfire team at a local newspaper station back in 2016

You can read about the article here ;

https://www.nst.com.my/news/2016/12/198588/five-local-bands-collaborate-make-christmas-music-underprivileged-kids

Here's some of the songs that were featured in the album.

Before This Season

by Me Gusta!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d90mgeUtes4

Happy Christmas, Baby

by Scouting Trees

https://soundcloud.com/scouting-trees/happy-christmas-baby

Odd Christmas

by Fancy Bear

https://soundcloud.com/fancy-bear/fancy-bear-odd-christmas

The cost of a simple album back then was MYR5 (1.2USD). They managed to sold 300 pieces of the album at the price of MYR10 (2.4USD) in the span of three weeks, which was ended right before Christmas 2016. The cost for the whole thing was MYR1500 (360USD) which left the profit to be MYR1500 (360USD).

The collected profit was then delivered to the shelter home on January 2017. It was sad to say that the amount we collected can only get them half a month of groceries as they were more than 40 children at the shelter home.

Bonfire 2016

For Christmas 2018, the Bondfire (previously known by Bonfire) community come together, hand in hand with SteemXP community to do another Christmas charity project which aim higher with the same purpose. This year, a total of 10 artists recorded a total of 10 songs for Christmas album which will be titled, "I Hear Sleigh Bells". We were aiming to produce and to sell 500 copies of the album.

Since we had much time preparing for this year's project, we had ensure the best quality of content for the album. So for this year's project, we managed to get few more artists and local studios to help us out with the project. The song quality is better. The packaging of the album is upgraded where we will include a booklet of full lyrics and details of the album and project.

The cost estimated for the album is at MYR10 (2.4USD) per album. So for a total of 500 pieces of album, we needed MYR5000 (1200USD).

Since we are aiming better this year, the album will be sold at MYR30 (7.2USD) per piece.

With all been said, we needed the help in collecting the fund needed to produce the album. We believe we can reach our target of 500 copies sales. We have started marketing the album, which we did not manage to do for the past project, on our social media as of September this year.

Bondfire Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/bondfirekk/

Bondfire Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/bond.fire/?hl=en

To secure our target, the artists and studios involved will help us in promoting the album.

Me Gusta!!

https://www.facebook.com/kkmegustaofficial/

1,300 followers

Chugs On Deck

https://www.facebook.com/chugsondeck/

2,450 followers

The Jadesisters

https://www.facebook.com/thejadesisters/

3,888 followers

Over Big Arts Studio

https://www.facebook.com/OverBigArtsRecords/

1,160 followers

With your support, it meant a lot to us but a lot more to the shelter home we'll be helping as they hold precious futures in their hands. We believe that the children deserves a good life so they can make a good future for all. Let's fill this Christmas with love and make it the best one yet.
We hope we can achieve our target and make the children happy.

You can read about Bondfire 2016

Bonfire Christmas (Music for Charity - The Making) here.
Bonfire Christmas (Music for Charity - The Market) here.
Bonfire Christmas (Music for Charity - The Children) here.