On behalf of Red Urban Project and Vanier College, you are invited to take part in a two day culture celebration at the Montreal Pow Wow happening at Vanier College in Montreal, Quebec on May 7th and 8th 2016.
Founded in 2013 the Red Urban Project helps establish connections and gain understanding between First Nations Culture and Non Aboriginal Canadians through crafting and cultural workshops and different events in the Eastern Ontario and Western Quebec areas.
In 2014 The Red Urban Project joined forces with some area members of Montreal and created Montreal’s first ever One Day Season Teaser Pow Wow. This successful event made it possible for inner city people both of First Nations and non aboriginal decent to join together to celebrate First Nations culture in Montreal. In 2015, the 2nd annual Montreal Pow Wow was hosted at Beurling Academy High-school in Verdun. The Montreal Pow-Wow and Beurling Academy High school one day Pow-Wow was another huge success. This Year Montreal Pow Wow and Vanier Indigenous Circle have teamed up together and we are pleased to announce that there will be a not one, but two day Pow Wow at Vanier College, which provides a much larger space and a whole new experience. We are already expecting our biggest number of visitors yet.
Strength amongst our communities is as important now as ever. That’s why this years Pow Wow will be themed “Community Wellness”. It is with a healthy heart and mind that we can care for one another and carry on tradition and our sponsors this year reflect that. We hope you will take this opportunity to join us in an exciting weekend of cultural celebration, one that will hopefully be the catalyst for many more events to come.
We are lucky to have a group of exceptional volunteers who help make sure the weekend runs smoothly, but we are now at a turning point and are in need of financial help to make the rest of the event take place. Your sponsorship would help with the costs pertaining to supporting those who are attending the Pow Wow such as the drum groups, staff carriers, and traditional dancers. We often ask Elders and drum groups to join us from different communities and in exchange for their support and presence we take care of the financial aspects of their trip such as room and board. Other financial needs are for feeding our volunteers, and making sure no detail goes missed. As this is the first year we are relying solely on in kindness donations, we unfortunately will have trouble putting this event on in the future if we do not receive our Kickstarter base sum of five thousand dollars.
The only potentially unexpected obstacle that we are really facing right now (other than an unexpected rain shower, for which we have an indoor alternative) is not having the funds to recover from this year. If we don’t fundraise enough this year to safely support this Pow Wow, we will face the chance that we struggle trying to recover and we won’t be able to continue this event as an annual occurrence, something that would be devastating.
It is of huge importance that we keep community events like this going so that we have a place to gather, celebrate tradition and just share time in solidarity with one another as community members, it keeps the heart and mind healthy. We really can’t continue without your help, even just a share makes a difference. So please, join us in making this amazing cultural event take place by visiting our Kickstarter page, every dollar counts!
Interested in volunteering? Care to make a different kind of donation? Have questions about what exactly a Pow Wow is? We would love to hear from you, powwowmtl@gmail.com
