By Jack Hopkins
Ever fancy spending a night celebrating a fictional apocalyptic virus, while helping stamp out a real-life one? Zombie Survival Camp does just that with a humanitarian focus at their Halloween bash.
The Zombie Prom, held on Oct. 31 at the Palais Royale, has been paired with a fundraiser to help quell the emerging global Ebola crisis. Organized by Eric Somerville and Peter Lane, both are co-founders of the first Zombie Survival Camp in Canada.
“For this event, $1 from every ticket sold goes towards giving healthcare workers in the regions of Africa affected by ebola proper protective equipment to wear,” said Somerville. “That’s the most effective way to stop transmission of the disease.”
About 400 participants are expected to attend, which means that hundreds of dollars could be raised in the fight against Ebola. The zombie-themed party keeps in tradition with other events previously done by the duo.
Somerville said that this is their first time doing a zombie prom event since opening up their zombie survival camp. Ryerson student, Deidter Stadnyk, was an instructor at the camp and the team has been planning for four months to make it a night to remember.
Somerville said that he met Lane in university and would often sit around discussing zombie scenarios, trying to make them a reality. “We had been looking for something like this and there was nothing like this in Canada, so we figured ‘why not?, let’s do it here.’” They held four zombie survival camps this past summer.
Although the events are dying down for the season, they’re planning to start things up again in the spring. Their zombie-apocalypse survival camps will kickoff with their first session in early May.
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