A CLUB night organiser from Helensburgh is hoping to use the power of underground music to help homeless people on the streets of Glasgow this Christmas.
InterChange founder Brendan Campbell, 24, will donate all proceeds from a special techno event in the city this weekend to Homeless Project Scotland in support of the fledgling charity’s work.
The former Hermitage Academy pupil - who has returned to his home town over the festive period while on leave from his RAF post near Oxford - has run the successful club night for three years and he told the Advertiser that now is the perfect time to give back to a good cause.
He said: “We want this event to be the start of something because music is a massive part of Glasgow, especially underground music like techno.
“If we can connect all these people together to fight a cause like this it would be fantastic.
“With everything that’s going on with Covid, these people that are on the streets are more vulnerable than ever, and the weather can be quite severe in Scotland during the winter, so we wanted to help out and give something back.”
Homeless Project Scotland was founded in October 2019 and achieved charitable status less than 12 months later, offering soup kitchens in Glasgow city centre to feed and provide support to homeless and vulnerable people.
The Project Dance event, taking place tonight (Saturday, December 18) at Room 2 in the city's Nelson Mandela Place, will support the organisation’s efforts in tackling a problem which Brendan says has become impossible to ignore.
“If you’re out clubbing in Glasgow you’ll see them out working,” he said, “they serve hot meals under Central Station and provide first aid, so we just want to help them in the fight against homelessness.
“Homelessness in Glasgow is a big problem, you walk past it every day in the city centre and I think sometimes homelessness can get missed out a bit when it comes to support from charities.
“People have different perceptions on what the money would go towards.
“We’ll have seven DJs playing [at Saturday’s event], so we’ve managed to get a lot of people together to hopefully put on a good night.
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“We’ll hopefully build up a relationship with the charity to not just make this a one-off event.
“It’s about trying to come up with things that are different. A lot of people do raise money for charities and it’s all fantastic but we want to approach it in a different way to hopefully get more attention and more people donating because we’re doing something a bit more unique.”
Brendan was part of the quartet of ex Hermitage pupils who featured in the Advertiser earlier this year after completing the David Goggins Endurance Challenge, raising around £8,000 for the Beatson Cancer Charity.
And he said this weekend’s event will be a fitting follow-up to his March achievement.
He added: “It’s just a case of seeing what happens on the night but I’d like to raise at least £500, that would be a good target for us.
“Anything is a bonus, even if it’s a fiver; that’s £5 more than nothing.”
Check out ‘Interchange presents: Project Dance’ on Facebook for more information about the event.
READ MORE: Click here for all the latest news headlines from across Helensburgh and Lomond
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