A weekend of 2 great causes - Arts Alive and Project Host

There is TONS of stuff going on in Greenville now that the weather is nicer. There is always something going on, but right around this time of year there are more festivals than you can attend! We kicked off the weekend at Arts Alive, the annual spring fundraiser for Stone Academy. With food, live music, rides, games and a silent auction we had our work cut out for us; the boys voted to start with the rides and games.

Stone Academy is one of three magnet elementary schools in Greenville County. The emphasis at Stone is on the arts, and the silent auction featured artwork created by the students. There were also a few art-related booths like the one allowing kids to take a turn at a pottery wheel, however the majority of games and rides are the sort you would find at a carnival: a dunk tank, cake walk, bounce house and so on. In my opinion the top attraction was the music lineup, which included Greenville percussion guru Jeff Holland and singer/songwriter Darby Wilcox.

Vilis watches Darby Wilcox takes the stage while Jeff Holland packs it up

After hot dogs and a snow cone the youngest member of our entourage was feeling tired, and so we headed home just as the silent auction was ending and the Rolling Stones cover band consisting of all Stone parents took the stage. You can find my 2013 Arts Alive recap here, and the one from 2014 here.

It was pure chance that we ended up in downtown Saturday for the second half of the BBQ Cookoff festival. Roberts and the boys took the trolley downtown while I was out running errands, but once I heard there was a BBQ festival on, I hurriedly took the groceries home and went to join them! In its sixth year, the people’s choice chicken wing competition was on Friday night while the judged barbeque and rib cooking contest was Saturday. We tasted pulled pork BBQ from a majority of the cooking teams including a couple of our favorites such as Henry’s.

Put on by Project Host, the event was a fundraiser for the following: Project Host Soup Kitchen, the C.C. Pearce Community Culinary School (teaching culinary and life skills to the chronically unemployed including job placement assistance), Project Host Catering (offering catering by the culinary students and benefiting the Culinary School) and the Feeding Hungry Children Project (which provides 450 healthy after school meals weekly to children who are at risk of going to bed hungry). According to the Project Host website, it is the first soup kitchen in the country to have a garden on-site. In addition, on the third Thursday of every month they host a reservations-only dinner designed to give the culinary students more practical experience. For more information on Project Host and how you can get involved in this organization benefitting our community, please visit their website, www.projecthost.org.

Falls Park selfie!

For more stuff happening downtown check out the City of Greenville events page here. There’s something almost every night of the week! Thursday evenings; Downtown Alive at NOMA Square on Main St. - featuring rock, blues, funk, and cover bands. Fridays are also at NOMA Square - Main Street Friday featuring jazz, blues, oldies and soul music bands. The Saturday Market reopens for the year Saturday the 2^nd (Main St. at McBee Ave.), and the Moonlight Movies classic movie series in Falls Park will be starting up again on Wednesday, May 6^th (click here for schedule). The Rotary Club of Greenville is hosting the annual Reedy River duck derby on May 2^nd, and Artisphere is scheduled for May 8-10. If that’s not enough to keep you busy for the next couple of weeks let me know, and you can come help out here; the month of May will be all hands on deck!