Local hip hop party collective One Day and creative young guns from Entropico have joined forces for a great cause. This year One Day's Nick Lupi and Adit Gauchan along with Entropico's Sam Egan will be joining over 320 CEOs sleeping rough to raise funds for St Vincent De Paul. The One Day team have already smashed their $10,000 target – via fundraising and collecting money at the most recent One Day Sunday. This cash is just a slice of the total fundraising pool of over $1.4 million. The money will go towards supporting people experiencing homelessness.
Adit tells Time Out, "We’re doing this sleep out initiative because homelessness is a serious and widespread issue that gets barely any airtime in the public discourse. Its causes are varied from domestic violence, mental illness, to unemployment. One of the leading causes is the shortage of affordable housing. At the moment we have 206,000 households on the waiting lists for social housing of which over 105,000 people are designated homeless – 60% of these people are under the age of 35."
Sydney's CEO Sleepout comes off the back of some controversy surrounding the Adelaide event, which was gatecrashed by local homeless people. "The gatecrash incident is interesting but not surprising. The privilege of a bunch of CEOs 'sleeping rough' for one night before going back to their warm houses, nice salary packages and lofty Christmas bonuses is not lost on me," Adit explains. "The suggestion that anyone could know what it’s like to be homeless from such an exercise is laughable... But this is not the point – it's a fundraising and awareness exercise. And for that, by tapping into the networks of people in positions of privilege, it is extremely successful. The initiative raised over $6 million last year and is on track to do something similar this year. Every dollar goes towards Vinnies’ support services for the homeless, from crisis accommodation, to support centres, to food and clothing relief." We'll back that any day.
Head to One Day and Entropico's CEO Sleepout fundraiser page to donate.