Press release from Green Opportunities:
Southside Rising For Justice is a family-friendly community celebration featuring food, music, cultural performances, and hands-on interactive social justice activities for residents of Asheville’s Southside neighborhood. On July 14 from 1-9 p.m. at the Arthur Edington Center (133 Livingston St), numerous community partners will join with Southside residents and businesses to rise for a future that ensures everyone has a beautiful and healthy place to live, work, and play.
The event evolved from Southside Arts & Agricultural Center (SAAC), a collaborative team of organizations, grassroots leaders, and community members creating a new narrative of hope in the Southside through pathways to healing and economic mobility involving arts, culture, and food justice. SAAC has facilitated the construction of a covered pavilion in Southside Community Garden to be used as a community performance space and has helped to secure over $400,000 in funds towards the renovation of the Edington Center auditorium. SAAC envisions that the auditorium and pavilion will serve as spaces that cultivate healing, restoring, and reclaiming community through various forms of black culture, creativity, arts, and agriculture.
Southside Rising For Justice is the result of a strategic partnership between SAAC and the Justice First Tour, which is a diverse movement across the South working at the intersection of forests, climate, and justice. The tour focuses on a new vision for the region – 100% clean energy, healthy forests, and healthy jobs for low-income communities of color, such as the Southside.
Southside Rising For Justice will feature live music in the garden pavilion, with performances by local artist Lyric and many others. There will be a supervised activity area for kids with crafts, games, and plenty of space to play. A community marketplace will feature food and goods from local vendors, plus interactive arts activities and representatives from community organizations. In addition, a special performance by the No Kapp Dance Team will be followed by a creative strategy session to develop an increased level of social cohesion and steps for community development.
Southside Rising For Justice, a day to build community pride and channel it towards co-created strategies for putting justice first in health of mind and body, policies that impact our lives, sustainable community practices, and economic mobility. Learn more by searching for Southside Rising on Facebook or visiting SouthsideRising.com.
For more information, contact Sekou Coleman at 240-535-0840 or freshlo@greeopportunities.org.
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