A Campbell River DJ is stepping up to help unhoused community members on Friday, May 10.
Robbie Pollard, also known as DJ Robbie Robb, is hosting his second fundraising event for Campbell Riverites experiencing homelessness next week. The event will be a dance party with local DJs and rappers performing free of charge. The event will feature a clothing table run by Kwesa Place, and local restaurants will be supplying pizza and refreshments. The whole idea behind the event, called Sun Up at the Square, is to raise funds to help feed the people who are living outdoors.
“There is no more budget for the Kwesa Place breakfast program, which they do use to feed the people and homeless downtown. The budget was finished in April, and will be done until September,” Pollard said. “I organized this fundraiser for that. Any money that’s donated is all going towards food initiatives for people downtown.”
When he is not DJing, Pollard works as a security guard downtown. Over the past year, he says he has realized how much people are struggling living outside.
“I’ve seen family from my band Wei Wai Kum and others from reserves across Vancouver Island, as well as many from all cultures and walks of life all struggling just the same,” he said. “For the winter months they were given food and shelter and you could see the happiness and fulfillment from even being able to have that, but sadly the funding for this program ended.
“It is not a problem that will just go away and there are many starving now, I feel that us as a community can do more to help these people,” he said. “We have been given the luxuries that they do not, while we can spend $60 on ordering take out they are wondering where or when they can get their next meal.”
The event will be held at Spirit Square from 1 p.m. until 9:30 p.m. on Friday, May 10.
“A lot of the people that are living on the streets have actually offered to help and clean up afterwards,” he said.
“There has been a stigma in regards to the unhoused in which they are all addicts or alcoholics, not all are but this life has also pushed them to their lowest point and is used to try and cope with their reality,” he added. “We need to realize that it could be any of us at any moment had we been given the cards they have been dealt.”
DJs include Robbie Robb, B Rave’n, Acid $anta, Namaste, Lunacy, JohnE Downtown, Nasty Nickel & Mixolydian as well as Pollard’s “favorite up and coming rapper CR’s own Dizzy Price.”
Pollard has set up a GoFundMe to help raise funds, it is available on the event’s Facebook page and online at https://www.gofundme.com/f/sun-up-at-the-square.
RELATED: Campbell River DJ wants to help unhoused community members
30-hour famine comes to Timberline to encourage donations to fight hunger