Every summer, Radical Alternative Development, or RAD, hosts a mental health awareness benefit punk show. The show, hosted at Washington Jefferson Park, is meant to bring the community together and give the people who need it most a sense of belonging. “We’re just trying to provide the next generation with the community that we needed when we were younger that wasn’t there,” RAD founder BriJit Jenkins says. RAD was founded during the 2020 pandemic when longtime punk fans got together to create an official organization that serves as a distributor of resources, education and community. Jenkins says the founders saw a need for something like RAD when the suicide rate spiked. “We were like, we have to do something about this because a lot of the people who were taking their lives are very underserved, especially in an alternative subculture,” Jenkins says. RAD gets funding mainly from the community but also received a grant this year from the city of Eugene, Jenkins says, which is an instrumental part of hosting the Washington-Jefferson show. Jenkins says RAD received around 70 percent less funding this year and blames the current presidential administration. Despite this, RAD is hosting one of its biggest mental health awareness benefits ever, this year taking place both Saturday and Sunday from noon to 10 pm. “We’re still going to do it bigger this year, because we take care of us and we’re raising the money ourselves,” Jenkins says. RAD’s longtime goal is to keep giving back to the community through its shows, fundraisers and events. As a licensed mental health professional, Jenkins says she hopes for a future where mental health and social services are more accessible and inclusive. “We need more mutual aid,” she says. “If people want to feel valued, heard and a part of something, they need to be more than just, ‘Oh, make sure that I’m paying you money first.’” The mental health awareness benefit will include performances by bands such as Haggis, Dry Socket, Aggro, Weapons World, Prager Youth and Triangle Fire.

RAD’s Mental Health Awareness Benefit Punk Show is noon to 10 pm Saturday, Sept. 13, and Sunday, Sept. 14, at Washington Jefferson Park. The event is all ages and free.