On Dec. 16 at the Grant Hall Hotel, River Street Promotions (RSP) donated $15,000 to maintain and beautify Ross Wells Park, the Homestand concert venue, and an additional $85,000 to the RSP fund benefiting the Prairie South and Holy Trinity school divisions.
River Street Promotions is a non-profit consisting of five members: Jared Mathieson, James Murdock, Shea Jameson, Andy Hamilton, and Joel Stewart.
RSP raises money through its Homestand concert series to benefit youth mental wellness. The money goes into an account called the RSP Mental Health Wellness Funding and is accessible by the Prairie South School Division (PSSD) and the Holy Trinity Catholic School Division (HTCSD).
Schools use the money for mental wellness events, speakers, workshops, and awareness campaigns.
The first Homestand concert resulted in a $50,000 donation to create that fund.
“Last year, we gifted $65,000 — $50,000 to Prairie South and $15,000 to Ross Wells,” said RSP founding member James Murdock. “So, that represents a substantial increase from year one to year two.”
The cheque for Ross Wells Park was accepted by Charlie Meacher. PSSD Superintendent of Learning Amanda Olson was there for Prairie South, and HTCSD was represented by Director of Education Ward Strueby and HTCSD school board chair Joann Blazieko.
The difficulties of creating and organizing a large concert, preceded every year by a showing of the Banjo Bowl, caused some initial nervousness for RSP. The artists who come to perform at Homestand are paid a full and fair price for their appearance, and there are large overhead costs for equipment, advertising, and more.
Putting on Homestand ’21 in pandemic times didn’t help, either. However, Murdock said the success of this second year is a reassuring and complete proof of concept: there’s no doubt now that Homestand will continue and continue to expand.
“The strong group of volunteers that joined Homestand this year to help and assist, that really put us over the top,” Murdock explained. “That really solidified that we’re doing something good, that the community is behind us, and you know, I fully anticipate that more volunteers will continue stepping up.
“This show that we just put on in September, we had close to 100 volunteers, which was unbelievable … and alleviated a lot of strain and stress from the first, inaugural one.”
The core RSP founding group was assisted by an informal Homestand committee of 11 locals who put their expertise to work for the charity and contributed to the growth in concert attendance.
Those committee members are:
- Mark Novecosky
- Chris Olfert
- Jamey Logan
- Laurie Kosior
- Jocelyn Froehlich
- Lyndsay Hanson
- Curtis O'Reilly
- Kenric Phillips
- John Iatridis
- Derek Duzan
- Brett Williams
The date of Homestand ’23 is already set for September 9, 2023. Murdock said he and his fellow RSP founders are anticipating a much faster announcement of the concert’s lineup this time.
“We got two out of the three acts booked in and confirmed (already), we’re just waiting on one other, and then we’ll release that,” he said. “Hopefully by the end of December, if not a bit sooner, we’ll be ready to relay those details.”
