For several years after he graduated from Dover Bay Secondary School, Kevin Kocher found the One Stop Youth Centre at NYSA (Nanaimo Youth Services Association) a helpful support. Now, as manager of Moka Only, he's found a way to pay them back.

For those not into today's music scene; Moka Only, the person Kevin is managing, is a Hip Hop Artist and a former member of the band, Swollen Members. In other words, he's a big deal.

It turns out that Moka Only loves our Mid Island Region, especially Gabriola Island and Nanaimo. In fact he likes us so much he wrote and recorded a song called "Nanaimo".

You can download the tune from iTunes and all of the proceeds will go to the One Stop Youth Centre, at NYSA.

Both Steve Arnett, NYSA's Executive Director, and Yvonne Van Der Kooi, Program Coordinator at the One Stop Youth Centre, are excited to receive this support from Moka Only and Kevin.

"It's not about the money," Arnett said. "When Moka Only says that we are good folks here and encourages young people to drop in, that's worth a sack of gold."

Moka Only's success story is a fascinating one, which you can read at his web site www.maplemusic.com/artists/mok/default.asp.

But Kevin's story is interesting too, especially to today's young people in their late teens and early mid twenties.It should also be of interest to their parents who just might be about to give up on them.

Like a lot of young people today, Kevin spent his first five or six years out of school bouncing from one job to another trying to find his future. He worked in retail, at a fish plant in Tofino, and any other job he could find to pay the bills.

Then five years ago he moved to Vancouver when he was twenty-five and soon connected with Swollen Members a year or so before they hit the big time. Given his life-long passion for music, this was a huge break for him.

A couple of years later, he moved to Los Angeles with the band as their business manager when they were signed with the Virgin/EMI label.

A year or so after that, he decided to go out on his own and formed the Rec Room Music Group, a marketing and PR company, and began working for a number of different record labels, work that involves travelling across North America and Europe.

Life is good!

When Moka Only went out on his own, Kevin became his manager and quickly found that he enjoyed that work too. In fact he likes it so much he has taken on other acts as well.

So how does someone move from a fish plant in Tofino, to becoming a young entrepreneur in the music business? It was a combination of passion and luck, he explained. The few business courses he took at Malaspina before he left town didn't hurt either.

So if you are a young person who is feeling a little lost these days, or the parent of such a person, don't give up.Focus on your passion, take one step at a time, and you will get there.

It also wouldn't hurt if you paid a visit to NYSA at 290 Bastion Street or called them at 754-1989. Then when you become successful, it wouldn't be a bad idea to pay them back as Kevin has.

A note to readers who sent donations to the Rotary Club of Nanaimo North in support of the AIDS orphans I have been working with at Sihlengeni High School in Zimbabwe.

I have had a bit of a computer disaster and lost the contact information for three of you donors: Margaret Wall, Peter Van Velthuijsen, and Shirley Winkler. Please contact me at bill@nhero.org or at 741-7499.