Volunteer work will earn free fest tickets

Music fans willing to volunteer time for the homeless will be able to snap up the last few tickets to Virgin Mobile’s FreeFest in Maryland, officials say.

Virgin Mobile USA said the 35,000 free tickets for the Aug. 30 music festival at Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, Md., are long gone, except for 3,000 set aside for those willing to do eight to 13 hours of volunteer work for homeless organizations, USA Today reported.

Other ticket-holders are being asked to donate $5 to the charities.

Social giving is at an all-time low, Virgin Mobile’s Ron Faris told the newspaper. There are 2 million young people out there ages 12 to 24 who are homeless. So we’re willing to eat the cost of a $100 ticket, if people can just donate $5 to help homeless youth organizations that have been decimated by this economy.

The 17-band concert will be headlined by Weezer, Blink-182, Franz Ferdinand and Public Enemy, and is one of only a few major music fests to go completely free, USA Today said.