Humanity ROCKS!
Photos and Article by: Ronak Ghorbani
Originally written for the Ryerson Free Press
Date: February 5, 2008

On January 4, a chilly Friday night, hundreds of people piled into Toronto’s Lee’s Palace for a night of good music, dancing, and social change. In efforts to improve living conditions for the city’s homeless community, Toronto based non-profit organization Rock for Humanity has been hosting benefit concerts for the past 5 years.

Inspired by the political nature of punk music, RFH founders Jordan Howard and Jen Kreisz have combined their passion for music with a passion for change.

“Jen and I were walking down Bloor St. at Sherbourne St. and we came across a homeless guy and started talking to him. He was telling us his life story, how his wife left him and how he lost his job and now he’s on the street. What a lot of people would take as a sob story we kind of took as ‘Holy shit we have to do something about this’,” recalls Howard.

“The only thing both of us knew was music…We wanted to take the idea of punk rock and morph it into what we wanted. Which was change, which was awareness, which was people in the 25 and under category saying ‘You know what? I care about everyone that lives in this city not just people with money, not just students, but also about people that are living on the streets and dying every single day’. And we decided to start Rock for Humanity.”

Starting out of a small coffee shop in Oshawa in 2003, RFH concerts have become so popular they are now held in bigger venues all across Ontario. One-hundred per-cent of the profits raised are donated to various charities, the bands play for free and the venues offer up free space.

Believing in local bands fighting for local causes, RFH has worked with bands like The Artist Life, Angry Agency, and I Hate Sally.

For Sam Sutherland, guitarist and vocalist of Junior Battles, playing a RFH concert means bringing attention to something that is often ignored.

“There are a lot of people that want to come out and see music, so being able to pick a really worth while charity where you know your money is going to do good is important. If 100 people come out tonight and pay ten bucks, that’s a 1000 bucks that will really make a difference to that organization. A night like this will actually make a difference to people,” says Sutherland.

All of the money raised at the January show was donated to Street Health Toronto, an organization that brings medical services to people living on the streets. They also worked with the Toronto Disaster Relief Committee and other local organizations.

I Hate Sally also played the January concert and vocalist Dee Prescott really related to the need for adequate health care. “I just spent a few days in America and staying with some of my American friends and hearing them talk about health care, that even if you do have a job and an apartment you still can’t afford to go to a doctor. We’re really lucky in Canada, but you still need an address usually to get health care... We’re helping less fortunate people, it’s amazing,” she says.

Marc Garniss, I Hate Sally guitarist, agrees with Prescott. “We’re in Toronto all the time and see [homelessness] is a problem,” he says. “We can directly see who the show is benefiting, we’re around these people all the time. For us, it was an easy decision to drive a few hours [from Kingston] to do the show.”

Using live music to bring people together to fight for social change has proven to be a great success. RFH hosts five to six shows a year and their support base keeps growing; something The Artist Life bass player Chuck Leach loves about the concerts.

“It’s funny, this is the quote on quote communication age and yet I think with the advent and popularization of the internet and e-communication, there has been such a massive breakdown of societal involvement,” Leach says.

“You leave your house, to your garage, to your work, back to your car, back to your house, back to your computer. There just doesn’t seem there’s a lot of awareness to what’s going on outside of that box. I think it’s incredibly important to wake people up, to shake things up a bit.”

Shaking things up is exactly what RFH plans on doing. Throughout the past 5 years they have been able to get youth and music fans involved in improving the lives of homeless people. They raised almost $8000 and there is no stopping them. The United Nations is holding a spring/summer event in Ontario and RFH is already in talks with teaming up with them.

“I don’t think people should be quiet about people sleeping on the street, I think people should stand up and realize this is wrong. You shouldn’t just be quiet and go ‘Shh, I’m just going to leave this alone and walk by this guy’,” Howard says.

“No, don’t walk by the guy, go to your city counsellor, support different charities, make donations, do anything, but don’t be quiet because that’s not how things are going to change. We’re trying to be as loud as possible, it’s in the name. Rock ain’t quiet, that’s for sure. We’re trying to be loud.”