Three years ago, the first year of the Nanaimo Blues Festival, Tom Dodge volunteered to drive up from Victoria eight Saturdays in a row to be a festival volunteer. He met so many great people during those eight weeks and had such a good time, he packed up his life in Victoria and headed north.

Tom has remained heavily involved with the festival, but a year and a half ago, he found his own dream. He wanted to create a home for the Blues Society, a space where musicians and others could gather and share their love of music. He envisioned musicians inspiring fans and each other and experienced musicians inspiring kids.

Perhaps most folks thought his dream was more of a fantasy than a dream. After all he had a $1,200 budget and there was no space available for the small rent he could afford. Most also "knew" that today's teenagers simply aren't interested in the Blues.

Well he found an amazingly large space for a very reasonable rent on Louis Lane downtown, and spent every waking hour for months working to turn this unused storage space into the Blues Underground. As the days and weeks past, more and more people caught his vision and began to help out.

At first the room, a drug and alcohol free zone, was used only for an electric jam every Thursday evening. Several months later an acoustic jam began and crowds grew on both evenings.

More and more musicians began turning out including a growing number of teenagers but Tom's dream of a Rock School for kids still hadn't unfolded. He saw the kids being taught by the "best of the best" musicians in the area and that was going to take money.

When Nanaimo was named a Cultural Capital, a little money became available for the school and then a long-forgotten grant request came through.

And guess what, it seems kids love the Blues. In fact, with promotional help from the various high school music teachers, over thirty kids have registered for the program at the Blues Underground that sees a vocal, keyboard and guitar workshop every Monday evening; bass, drums, song writing and technical workshops on Wednesdays; horns on Fridays and eight hours of rehearsal time every Sunday for the four youth bands that have been formed out of the school.

You can catch two of these bands at the Nanaimo Blues Festival on Sunday August 17 from 12:30 to 1:30 and the other two on Saturday August 23 from 1:30 to 2:30.

Starting a few months ago, with enthusiastic support from Jerry Paquette of Raincoast Studio and Coaltown Records, various bands are being given an opportunity every second Saturday evening to record their own live album at rock-bottom prices.

With all of these successes under his belt, Tom still isn't stopping. He expects to organize a live radio show on CHLY every week starting this fall as well as a regular dinner show featuring Vancouver Island's best Blues performers.

Dear knows what his next dream might be but whatever it is, you can count on it being successful because he backs up his dreams with passion, persistence and action. That's what makes dreams, even fantasies, come true.