Online benefit concert to aid independent living cause
A Nashville singer with ties to Peterborough is holding an online benefit concert to help local families raise money so their sons with disabilities can live better lives independently.
Rick Brantley is not a common household name, but he is helping to start to build a home for a bunch of young men who have disabilities in the Peterborough area. Brantley is an American rock musician originally from Macon, Ga. He was introduced to the Shared Dreams for Independent Living organization by a mutual friend and became a big supporter for them.
“I met these people through friends of mine two or three years ago in Peterborough and I just fell in love with them. These guys are rad,” he said.
Brantley will be hosting a Facebook Live event on Saturday starting at 8 p.m. Funds from Brantley’s performance go to support Shared Dreams for Independent Living in supporting people and their adult children with developmental challenges and disabilities.
Five local young men with disabilities will be moving into their own independent living apartment in September at the Mount Community Centre on Monaghan Road.
“Regardless what your challenges may be, all people deserve to be the authority of their own lives, they should be the authority of their own life and should be able to choose who and where they live and what makes up their daily lives, what activities and what recreation makes up their own life,” said Christine Cannon, chairperson of Shared Dreams for Independent Living.
The group was started in 2013 as a non-profit organization by five families who were determined to change how people looked at those with disabilities.
“Anyone who supports Shared Dreams and our organization and what we are doing is supporting the life of people moving forward,” Cannon said.
Good lives happen through partnerships, she said, and it is about independence and the choices that everyone makes no matter how mundane it might seem.
“We are not expecting just the community to support it or just the families to support it, it is a community partnership,” Cannon said.
What it boils down to is hope. Hope is what has kept them all going throughout this journey, she said, and hope for the great lives their family members deserve to be able to live.
Saturday’s livestream of Brantley’s show can be viewed at Facebook.com/rick.brantley.1.