A Milwaukee teenager spent his summer turning a love for local music into a fundraiser for two causes close to his heart, organizing an all-ages charity concert set for Tuesday at Cactus Club in Bay View. The festival, called On The Bay of Milwaukee, will feature seven up-and-coming Milwaukee hip-hop and rock acts, with every dollar raised split between The Trevor Project and World Central Kitchen.
The teen organizer, identified only as Jack, told TMJ4 News that the choice of beneficiaries was personal. Jack, who is a member of the LGBTQ community and has experienced mental health struggles, said The Trevor Project holds particular significance for him. “The Trevor Project is a very close charity to my heart,” Jack said, according to the station's report. He paired it with World Central Kitchen, calling it “a great cause to support.”
Doors at Cactus Club open at 6 p.m. Tuesday, with performances running from 7 p.m. to roughly 10 p.m., according to the venue's official event calendar. The lineup includes Nonamejames, Lil Jul, Tsuki40k, Charlotte Court, Floryence, Woraz, and Spill, a roster that earned a spot in Milwaukee Magazine's September concert roundup. Advance tickets are $10, while admission at the door runs $15.
Why Cactus Club Made This Possible
Hosting an all-ages show with alcohol service at a venue as small as Cactus Club wasn't always legal in Milwaukee. In 2019, the venue successfully petitioned the city's Common Council to amend ordinances governing Center for Visual and Performing Arts licenses, which had previously restricted such all-ages licenses to venues with stages exceeding 1,200 square feet, according to reporting on the venue's regulatory history. That change opened the door for smaller, independent spaces like Cactus Club to legally welcome teenage attendees alongside adult patrons.
The Bay View tavern has operated for nearly 30 years, evolving from a 1950s-era bar into an artist-run, queer-owned performance hub in the 1990s, per background reporting from Radio Milwaukee. In 2022, the venue established a nonprofit partner, Cactus+, to run mutual aid projects, community education, and accessibility programs. That arm launched a hybrid artist residency called In the Clouds in January 2025, offering $3,000 stipends to disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent artists, an initiative Radio Milwaukee has noted complements accessibility renovations funded through benefit concerts like this one. Hoodline previously noted Cactus Club as an intimate Milwaukee pop-up show venue for touring acts like Jack White.
The Stakes Behind The Trevor Project Half of the Fundraiser
Jack's personal connection to The Trevor Project reflects a broader crisis among LGBTQ+ youth in Wisconsin. According to The Trevor Project's 2024 state survey, 45% of LGBTQ+ youth ages 13 to 24 in Wisconsin seriously considered suicide in the preceding 12 months, and roughly half said they could not access the mental health care they wanted. That national survey sampled more than 18,000 LGBTQ+ youth.
State-level school data tells a similar story. Wisconsin's Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that high school students identifying as LGB are four times more likely to seriously consider and attempt suicide than their heterosexual peers, according to Prevent Suicide Wisconsin, which also reported that 18.1% of Wisconsin high schoolers overall considered suicide. Those disparities come amid separate reporting on strained national funding for LGBTQ+ crisis hotline services that Hoodline has covered in New York and New Jersey.
Where the Other Half of the Money Is Headed
World Central Kitchen, the second beneficiary, provides fresh food to communities affected by humanitarian crises and natural disasters. Founded in 2010 by chef José Andrés after the earthquake in Haiti, the organization reported serving more than 360 million meals globally as of May 2026, including over 272 million hot meals delivered to displaced families in Gaza, according to World Central Kitchen. Hoodline has previously reported on the organization's Gaza operations in a 2024 dispatch on its 200-ton food relief mission.
World Central Kitchen also announced in June 2026 that its teams had reached 10 million meals served in Haiti's Artibonite region, where roughly 450 local staff members run community kitchens for families displaced by civil violence. The deployment addresses acute food insecurity caused by armed attacks in the area, per the organization's own reporting.
A Personal Motivation, Rooted in Community
For Jack, the festival's purpose comes back to gratitude for the city he calls home. “I love the Milwaukee community so much. It's given so much to me, and I just wanted to do something to give back to the community,” he told TMJ4 News. He spent the summer planning and promoting the event before it lands at Cactus Club on Tuesday, bringing together seven local acts, two causes, and an all-ages crowd for one night on Milwaukee's south side.
