Our story.

In August 2021, Bill Zheng, then a high school student, and a group of friends came across LavaMae's Pop-Up Care Villages in San Francisco. The idea was simple: bring essential services like showers, healthcare, clothing, and haircuts together in one accessible place for people experiencing homelessness.

Inspired by the concept, they wanted to bring it to Calgary. However, without nonprofit status or connections to local homelessness-serving organizations, the idea was put on hold.

In April 2022, Kristen Baranieski from BeTheChangeYYC brought the idea back to the table. Bill and Kristen began planning the inaugural event, connecting with Sam Reardon from LavaMaeX for guidance and support.

As planning progressed, Hanna Woodward, a registered social worker, joined the team and took on a co-leadership role alongside Bill. Together with Kristen and a growing team of volunteers and community partners, they brought Calgary's first Pop-Up Care Village to life on September 27, 2022, at Olympic Plaza.

We are grateful to BeTheChangeYYC for providing insurance coverage and organizational recognition that helped make the inaugural event possible, and to LavaMaeX for generously sharing resources, guidance, and knowledge that helped us learn how to organize our own Care Village.

That same year, Bill began his nursing education at the University of Calgary, while continuing his involvement in Calgary's homelessness-serving sector.

Following the success of the inaugural event, we began exploring how to sustain and expand the Calgary Pop-Up Care Village.

In 2023, Bill helped secure a grant from the Calgary Foundation, with support from SafeLink Alberta and BeTheChangeYYC, to bring the next Care Village to life.

That same year, Bill Zheng, Hanna Woodward, Tithi, Hannah K., and Kristen C. worked together to establish RadiCalgary, a nonprofit society intended to provide an independent organizational home for the Calgary Pop-Up Care Village and support the development of additional initiatives.

Our ambitions extended beyond hosting an annual festival. Bill and Hanna explored developing a mobile hygiene bus, inspired by LavaMaeX, that would bring shower facilities directly to people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. We also hoped to organize more Pop-Up Care Villages throughout the year.

However, after exploring the operating costs, the relatively limited number of people the bus could serve, and Calgary's challenging weather conditions, we decided not to pursue the mobile hygiene initiative.

Around this time, Bill was gaining frontline experience across Calgary's homelessness response sector, including emergency shelters, harm reduction outreach, and hospital and city security. Through these experiences, he began recognizing another gap: people facing homelessness, addiction, mental health challenges, and involvement with the criminal justice system often struggled to access or return to meaningful employment.

In 2023, while continuing his nursing education, Bill founded a separate organization, RadiCare Ventures, a social enterprise that operates like a business but reinvests its profits toward social good. RadiCare was created to provide employment opportunities for people facing these barriers. Meanwhile, Hanna began working as a social worker at the University of Calgary.

With both founders pursuing their professional commitments, RadiCalgary gradually became a smaller organization focused primarily on hosting the annual Calgary Pop-Up Care Village rather than developing the additional programs originally envisioned.

Despite our limited capacity, we continued organizing the Calgary Pop-Up Care Village each summer, bringing together dozens of community organizations, hundreds of guests, and volunteers.

Over time, Bill and Hanna began questioning whether the event should continue in its existing form. Calgary already had many organizations providing essential services and organizing outreach events for people experiencing homelessness. Were we duplicating their work? Would it make more sense to dissolve RadiCalgary or transfer the Care Village to another organization with greater capacity?

But as we reflected on the past several years, we began to recognize something we had initially overlooked. The value of the Care Village wasn't just about making resources available. It was about how people experienced them.

Healthcare, clothing, food, and other practical services remained important. Bringing them together in one welcoming space made accessing support easier and more dignified.

But guests also valued the live music, cultural performances, arts, and recreational activities. These weren't simply extras. They created opportunities for people to enjoy themselves, meet others, and spend an afternoon without being defined by their living circumstances.

We also noticed something happening between volunteers and guests. Housed and unhoused Calgarians were meeting, sharing stories, and forming connections with people they might otherwise only encounter in moments of conflict.

We had unintentionally created more than a resource fair. We had created a festival with the potential to build peace between housed and unhoused Calgarians.

Another important realization came from the young people who volunteered at the Care Village. Each year, we engaged approximately 80–100 young volunteers, many of whom were curious about homelessness and community work but had limited opportunities to meaningfully engage with people experiencing homelessness.

Some arrived feeling unsure of how to approach conversations or navigate unfamiliar situations. Yet, throughout the event, we watched them become more comfortable, build relationships, and develop a deeper understanding of the community. Over time, more young people began asking how they could get involved beyond volunteering for a single day.

We started experimenting with giving young volunteers greater responsibility. In 2025, Pijus became the first event coordinator outside of Bill and Hanna to take the lead in organizing the Calgary Pop-Up Care Village. In 2026, Natasha, Shaheena, and Shams were among the young people who stepped forward to help organize the event.

These experiences showed us that the Care Village could be more than an annual festival. It could also be a place where young Calgarians learn how to build community, develop leadership skills, and work alongside people from different walks of life.

But we also recognized that meaningful leadership development requires more than organizing a single event. Young people need time to learn, build relationships, reflect on their experiences, and practise their skills with support.

In 2026, Bill graduated from the University of Calgary's nursing program and became a Registered Nurse. That same year, he was selected for the Pathy Foundation Fellowship, a year-long opportunity to develop a community initiative.

This provided an opportunity to revisit the future of the Calgary Pop-Up Care Village and build on what we had learned over the previous five years. With conflicts surrounding homelessness continuing to divide housed and unhoused Calgarians, we began asking ourselves: What if we could intentionally create more opportunities for people to meet, understand one another, and build relationships outside of moments of conflict? And what if we could prepare young Calgarians to lead that work?

These questions led to the launch of the Care Village Fellowship, an eight-month experiential learning program where 5–7 young adults will explore community-building, learn about Calgary's homelessness-serving sector, develop leadership skills, and ultimately take the lead in organizing the annual Care Village.

After five years, we decided it was time for a new chapter. The Calgary Pop-Up Care Village is becoming the Calgary Care Village, a name that better reflects its evolution from a pop-up resource fair into an annual community festival focused on dignity, belonging, and peacebuilding.

We're also transitioning from RadiCalgary to Care Villages Collective, a new organizational identity that reflects our ambitions beyond a single festival or city.

While Calgary remains our home, we see the potential for this model of community festivals and experiential youth leadership to take root in other communities across Canada. Every community faces its own challenges, but we believe bringing people together across differences is an idea worth sharing.

Today, we're building on five years of experience with a clearer purpose: bringing housed and unhoused Calgarians together, challenging the assumptions that divide us, and preparing young people to continue this work.

We believe in a future where dignity and respect are non-negotiable, regardless of someone's living circumstances.