Arts Council Plans for May & June 2022
With the recent tornado that came through Seminole on May 4th, 2022, I feel it’s appropriate to make a post and update everyone on what’s going on with the Arts Council, what we’re doing to help, and what plans we have coming up for the Summer.
Downtown Seminole has been an area of focus for revitalization by the City of Seminole, the Arts Council, and the Downtown District Organization for quite a while. We had finally started to make some really good change with the twice-a-month cleanups, and all the time spent by volunteers working on the landscaping and flower pots at the intersections. We had toured with almost a dozen artists for various mural projects in the district and had just started receiving some design proofs. The Tornado to hit our Downtown District the hardest, and it’s been very heartbreaking seeing all of our hard work gone and our neighbors suffering. So many people in Ward 1 lost so much, or everything. But the commUNITY has really come together as a unified force to help our neighbors.
The Arts Council has started a relief fund and has managed to raise a little bit of money to help out folks who can’t qualify for aid, or just need a little bit of help to make ends meet for a few days. You can ask for relief by filling out this form, or if you want to help, you can make a donation to the relief fund or contact us about volunteering opportunities.
Now lets talk about what else is going on, and maybe end things on a more positive note!
Thank you to everyone who participated in our Shining a Light on Autism event we hosted in April! That event was the first Second Saturday event for 2022 and it was a huge success! We hosted a 4k and 1-mile fun run race, and had live music, food, fun and more for the whole commUNITY. Families of autistic persons gave us lots of positive feedback and thanked us for hosting this event to make them feel included in their commUNITY. We love that our event helped promote inclusion of all persons on the spectrum who live in Seminole and the surrounding areas. The race served as a fundraiser, and the proceeds were being raised for Special Education Classrooms in Seminole County! We crunched the numbers and the proceeds exceeded $3,000 — all of which will benefit teachers and student learning in their classrooms! Thank you again to all of our sponsors for making that a huge success. We have decided to make this an annual event, and hope to provide additional funding to teachers in Seminole County for years to come.
Hands-down, our favorite part of April’s Second Saturday event was the feeling of inclusion the people there experienced. In May and June, we plan to continue that momentum!
May 14 (this Saturday) we plan to have a fellowship of sorts at John’s Park from 5:00pm-9:00pm. Our “Chat & Chill” sesh at the park will include music, free food, yard games (horse shoes, giant jenga, yardtzee, corn hole, etc), kickball, basketball and more. Come by, bring a chair, and get to know your neighbors!
June 11, we will host Seminole’s first ever Pride event. Love is Love, and we want to celebrate inclusion and PRIDE with our LGBTQ+ commUNITY. Seminole has not always been the most welcoming to LGBTQ+ folks, and we intend to change that by providing a safe, inclusive space for us to celebrate. This year’s event will be modest, small, and family friendly. We hope with more support in the future, we can include pageants, parades, drag shows, and more.
We hope that with the current efforts being made to recover from the tornado, the commUNITY will continue working TOGETHER toward a better Seminole. Hope to see you all May 14 and June 11.
