Back in 1993, Louis Posen started the SoCal pop-punk label Hopeless Records, which has steadily made a name for itself in the indie world with outstanding releases from such cult faves as Atom & His Package and Samiam. Two years ago — after selling 100,000 copies of the label compilation Hopelessly Devoted to You Too — Posen got the idea to combine his two great passions: rock and roll and charity work. Enter Sub City Records, a division of Hopeless that contributes five percent of the suggested retail price of each disc sold to a different non-profit organization and also includes literature about the benefitting organizations in the packaging of each CD.

" When Hopelessly Devoted to You Too came out, we realized we were reaching a lot of people and we should be doing something additional to entertainment, " says Posen, who to date has released 20 albums on Sub City and raised more than $60,000. " There was an opportunity to raise awareness and funds for non-profits that we couldn’t pass up. There are just so many obstacles in the world that it takes all of us collectively to get behind something to make each problem end. The whole point of the label is to put our money and our actions where our mouth is. "

Now Sub City has teamed up with the Northern California indie Asian Man Records for its biggest project yet: the Plea for Peace/Take Action Tour, a six-week jaunt headlined by emo luminaries Hot Water Music and Alkaline Trio that’ll hit the Palladium in Worcester this Tuesday. Ticket sales benefit the Hopeline Network, a national group of suicide-prevention crisis centers, as well as non-profit organizations in each tour city. The labels have also released a bargain-priced benefit CD that features rare tracks by the bands on the tour as well as by other indie heavyweights like At the Drive-In and Boy Sets Fire.

Although they had never worked together before, Posen and Asian Man owner Mike Park had both mounted similar benefit tours over the last few years. For their " Plea for Peace " collaboration, Park ended up booking the bands — starting with Alkaline Trio, who went on tour with Blink-182 last spring and had recorded for Asian Man before moving to Vagrant for this year’s From Here to Infirmary. Posen hooked up corporate sponsorships from the magazines MH-18 and Thrasher and also worked out the alliance with the Hopeline Network. " We were looking for a cause that affects young people — especially adolescents and teenagers, " he says. " I did a lot of research on finding an organization that fit that area. If we can save one life, it’s totally worth it. "

One intriguing thing about the tour is that it’s rooted in the notoriously crossover-happy world of emo and pop punk — i.e., the folks most likely to be accused of abandoning punk’s conscience by the more dogmatic members of the underground punk community. The irony is not lost on Posen. " Just because someone’s singing about relationships doesn’t mean that they don’t care about disabled people or don’t care about their friends who have a mental illness or are suicidal. You can care about things and not sing about them. But I do believe in people acting on what they believe in. It’s much easier to sing about something than to do something about it. "