A newly-elected member of Forest Park’s District 91’s school board, Jed Brewer doesn’t have children in the district but he has a long background in helping others.
In addition to his new role, he is dedicated to meeting the needs of at-risk people throughout the country and the world as the founder of Good Loud Media, a nonprofit that uses music as a tool for public health communication.
“We work in communities that are historically under-resourced and underserved, and we use music as a way to begin conversations about physical health, mental health and community health,” Brewer said.
The organization works with communities throughout the United States, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Brewer founded Good Loud Media in 2021 after 20 years of experience in music, video, and audio production. His wife, Hallie Brewer, who has an extensive background is in healthcare, serves as the organization’s chief operating officer.
When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Brewer and his wife recognized a need for high-impact public health messaging in under-resourced communities.
“There are some communities where mass market health messaging just doesn’t get through very well,” Brewer said
Brewer said generic TV commercials, ads on the radio and billboards are communications strategies that are not always effective in certain communities.
“We started with the COVID focus just because that was such an immediate thing,” he said. “We did some outreach in particularly challenged neighborhoods of Chicago, but also in rural communities throughout the United States – areas where the use of personal protective equipment was statistically pretty low.”
In rural communities, Good Loud Media partnered with musicians in the country music space to create a ballad that would resonate with people.
“If we take music and a message and put them together in the right way, we can measurably improve people’s lives,” Brewer said.
Four years after getting started, Brewer said Good Loud Media is typically working on a half dozen projects at any given time. For those projects, the organization works with gig-based contributors, including musicians, producers, graphic designers, videographers and cinematographers.
They also work with subject-matter experts, such as doctors, lawyers, psychologists and social workers.
One example of a local project Good Loud Media has worked on is a track about Naloxone, a medication that saves lives of people experiencing an opioid overdose. In order to do this, Good Loud Media partnered with The West Side Heroin and Opioid Task Force. Through this initiative, 10,000 people in Chicago were reached with life-saving information about Naloxon, including where to obtain it. They did this with the help of Chicago’s 106.3FM WSRB, which helped spread the word.
Outside the United States, Good Loud Media has partnered with mental health professionals and recording artists in Nigeria to embed mental health education into music.
“And then we work with radio stations, with social media and with dance clubs to get that music into people’s eardrums,” Brewer said.
At the moment, the organization is producing music that meets the needs of former child soldiers in Africa.
“There is a need all over the world for resources specifically for people in that situation, so that’s one of the projects that we’re working on in 2025 and beyond,” Brewer said.
Good Loud Media is primarily funded by private donors, so Brewer said they would love to be considered by anyone looking to add new charitable causes to their giving.
To learn more or to donate, visit goodloudmedia.org.