advertisement
FYI

Concert Promoter Republic Live Creates Ooch and Hearts For Kids With Cancer

In late June, before The Rolling Stones played Burl’s Creek Event Grounds in Oro-Medonte, Ontario, Karen Bliss of Samaritanmag.com spoke with the venue owner/R

Concert Promoter Republic Live Creates Ooch and Hearts For Kids With Cancer

By Karen Bliss

In late June, before The Rolling Stones played Burl’s Creek Event Grounds in Oro-Medonte, Ontario, Karen Bliss of Samaritanmag.com spoke with the venue owner/Republic Live co-founder Stan Dunford about their events and the charities they support.  The big Stones show now out of the way, Republic Live still has its inaugural Big Sky Festival July 20 and the long-running Boots & Hearts Music Festival August 8-11.   


Dunford always adds a charity component to its annual Boots and Hearts country music festival, headlined this year (Aug 8-11) by Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert, and Maren Morris.

Years back, he teamed with music education charity MusiCounts and asked members of the music industry to donate $50 in exchange for tickets to the three-day festival but then he heard about Camp Ooch, a unique overnight summer camp for children with cancer and brought in the hashtag #BootsLovesOoch and enabled the festival-goers to help raise money.

advertisement

“It's a cancer resort in the Muskokas, where kids that aren’t allowed or can’t do certain things because they’re fighting cancer, they come up to Camp Ooch, where they have complete medical facilities there for blood transfusions, radiation, chemo and everything,” Dunford tells Samaritanmag. “The kids get to actually live a normal life for a while, while they're being treated for their cancer.”

Stan, wife Eva, daughter Brooke, and “the whole team” at Republic Live are involved, he says.

Past initiatives for Camp Ooch at Boots and Hearts included a 50-50 raffle and donating $1 from every bottle of water sold. The country music festival is the largest of its kind in Canada and regularly draws 40,000 people over three days.

The really special part comes later — Ooch & Hearts. – Continue reading the feature on the Samaritanmag website.

advertisement
Sit, Stay! Sabrina Carpenter Gives Loyal Fans a Treat With New Album ‘Man’s Best Friend’: Stream It Now
Marc Piasecki/WireImage

Sabrina Carpenter attends the Dior Homme Menswear Spring/Summer 2026 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on June 27, 2025 in Paris, France.

Music News

Sit, Stay! Sabrina Carpenter Gives Loyal Fans a Treat With New Album ‘Man’s Best Friend’: Stream It Now

The pop star's seventh LP follows one year after breakthrough project Short n' Sweet.

Manchildren and pearl-clutchers, beware — Sabrina Carpenter‘s new album Man’s Best Friend is here.

On Friday (Aug. 29), the pop star dropped her highly anticipated seventh studio LP, complete with 12 tracks. That includes lead single “Manchild,” which earned Carpenter her second-ever No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in June, and “Tears,” a music video for which dropped at the same time as the album.

This article was first published by Billboard U.S.

keep readingShow less
advertisement