An independent youth CD project launched earlier this year has paid off in a big way for Sunshine Coast Community Services.Waking Life Records representatives Daniel Kings-bury and Matt Posnikoff presented a cheque for more than $8,000 to Community Services last Friday. The money raised comes from the sale of their CD in the community and several fundraising concerts that were held in June.Waking Life Records is an independent record label founded and established by a group of Grade 12 students from last year's graduating class at Chatelech Secondary School.The idea to record and produce an album of original music came in December of 2004."The project evolved out of endless jam sessions and serenades, a particularly impressive annual school talent show and a realization that the grad class of 2005 had an unusually large number of talented and passionate young musicians. So Waking Life Records was born," said Kingsbury. The group spent spring break recording and mixing the full-scale, double-disc album."After some research, we decided to make our donation to the Sunshine Coast Community Services Society with the idea that the money would be put towards programming for youth," said Kingsbury. "Our hope is that youth at risk will be given the opportunity to take music lessons with these funds and that they will be empowered to create original music and given the ability to record it. Basically, we see our project as youth helping youth."When asked Friday about the project, both Posnikoff and Kingsbury expressed great appreciation for the community's support. "The sales of the CD exceeded our expectations," Kingsbury said."This is about youth, music and helping out the community," added Vicki Dobbyn, executive director at S.C. Community Services. "This is an amazing initiative and we're proud to be part of it."Dobbyn said the money would be banked for the time being while Community Services begins the process of formulating ideas for the music program."This first bit of fundraising is just the start of what we hope is a grassroots initiative," said Dobbyn. "Matt and Daniel are both going away for a while. When they return, our hope is to sit down with them and other youth of the community to see what their ideas are. These guys had a vision and we want to match that vision with something that is sustainable and long lasting for this community."There are still CDs available for purchase at $10 each from Palmeros, Lucy's, Coast Books and Talewind Books.
