Communication giant Verizon has announced that it will launch a new weekly streaming entertainment series dubbed Pay It Forward Live, which will include music, comedy, gaming, and more to support the small businesses hardest hit by the coronavirus pandemic. The webcast launches Thursday, March 26th at 8:00 p.m. with a performance from Dave Matthews.

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Thursday night’s webcast will see Matthews perform a 30-minute set from his home and will stream live on the Verizon Twitter page and Yahoo Entertainment website. You can watch the Dave Matthews live stream below:

 

Verizon plans to announce additional Pay It Forward Live performers who will follow Matthews with intimate streams from their self-quarantine locations. The series will also see Verizon donate $2.5 million to Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a nonprofit organization that aims to boost economic opportunity for people and communities across the United States. Verizon will also commit another $2.5 million based on engagement with the webcast series. LISC plans to give grants to small businesses in need around the country as government officials have effectively shut down thousands of markets to slow the spread of coronavirus and the disease it causes, COVID-19.

In a statement, Verizon chairman and CEO Hans Vestberg said,

Small businesses are being impacted in extraordinary ways as we all fight against the spread of COVID-19. These companies provide employment opportunities, goods, services, and gathering places that are the soul of local communities. Pay It Forward Live will give all Americans an opportunity to help their favorite small businesses survive this unprecedented hardship.

Verizon is hardly the only company to announce a webcast series over the past few weeks. Nugs.tv will offer streams nearly every night of the week while live events remain shut down for the foreseeable future. On Monday, Umphrey’s McGee hosts a free webcast series through nugs and on Tuesday, Joe Russo’s Almost Dead will host Rad Night in America. Wednesday, The Disco Biscuits hold a regular Relax & Recline archival series, followed by a temporarily-open Thursday. The weekend then gets started with The String Cheese Incident‘s Friday Night Cheese broadcasts of classic incidents, Dead & Company’s One More Saturday Night archival series, and finally closing out the weekend with Widespread Panic’s Never Miss A Sunday Show.

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Furthermore, nugs and 11E1even have partnered on a virtual festival webcast series, Live From Out There, that will run until the end of April and feature performances by Goose, Pigeons Playing Ping Pong, Cycles, Aqueous, Magic Beans, Holly Bowling, SunSquabi, Kitchen Dwellers, Twiddle, and more.

For more information on Verizon’s Pay It Forward Live, click here.

[H/T The Hollywood Reporter]