Vancouver Community College Foundation is hosting a fundraiser this Saturday, May 13th at the Broadway Campus. The Foundation is a registered charity whose mandate is to raise funds for VCC student scholarships, bursaries and training materials. This Saturday, there are raising funds for two memorial awards in honour of Jess Nichol and Keating Gudgeon. For those that don’t know the names, Jess was a bit of a ‘celebrity” bartender. He worked in Gastown at Boneta at the time of his death. We are told that Jess had long battled mental illness and committed suicide in 2011. Jess had a love for music, so family and friends hosted fundraisers to create an award that helps a musician with preference given to someone from the DTES. The aim is to help a musician who has faced and overcome challenges, stay in school. They will offer a two-year award whereby the recipient receives a total of $3,000 over their 2 year music program at VCC. The second memorial award is in the name of Keating Gudgeon. Keating was Jess’s foster brother. The recipient of this award will be a promising writer. Although VCC doesn’t offer a journalism program, they will be seeking learners with an interest in writing, regardless of their current program. Their preference is a student who identifies as LGBTQ2S. If you would like to check out last year’s recipient of the Jess Nichol Award, we invite you see this video by VCC on Adam Willey.
There is a stellar line up for the fundraiser including best-selling author Christopher Gudgeon will be launching a new short story collection “Encyclopedia of Lies”. The evening will feature words and music by:
§ Craig Northey from the Odds
§ Singer/songwriter, Nathan Rogers
§ Award-winning author, Yasuko Thanh
§ Singer/songwriter, Dante Hadden
§ Featuring VCC students & faculty
§ Plus: A Very Special Guest (6-time Juno Award Winner)
The event will be held in the Auditorium of VCC’s Broadway Campus this Saturday, May 13th from 6:00 – 9:00 pm. Tickets are $25 and available online through Eventbrite. We invite you to come out and support this event.
ILiveInEastVan.com 
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