On Saturday, the NIU chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America will sponsor its annual Rock 4 Life benefit concert which aims to raise funds for Safe Passage.

Safe Passage, DeKalb County’s domestic and sexual violence intervention and prevention agency, will celebrate its 25th anniversary this year.

According to the organization’s community resource director, Cynthia Folgate, the charity was a welcome surprise to employees and volunteers at the center.

“We are thrilled the community has been incredibly generous to us,” Folgate said. “It’s really a two-part thing, one is the concert and the other was a kind of silent auction [PRSSA] did at Wal-Mart last Saturday where they raised $800 for us.”

Safe Passage, which began when DeKalb residents opened their homes to victims of domestic abuse, has developed into a shelter and counseling center.

“We started out with safe houses and this was very much a grass roots organization,” Folgate said. “I hope we never lose that.”

The decision to choose Safe Passage as the benefactor of the event this year was an easy one according to Uday Malhotra, PRSSA president.

In the past, the society has chosen such groups as the National Kidney Association of Illinois but decided to try a more local approach this year, Malhorta said.

“We thought it would be a little easier to motivate people to get excited and involved in it if we chose a local group,” Malhotra said. “We had a vote and they all decided they wanted to do something closer to home.”