Saying Goodbye to 2021…
…and welcoming a new year and new plans for the Seminole Arts Council!
The Arts Council has had a fantastic year! Here’s a bit of a wrap of what 2021 was like for us:
In the beginning of the year as Oklahoma started to open up from the pandemic’s lock-down, the council began preparing plans for their previously-discussed “Second Saturday” events. With the addition of a few new board members, the team began structuring a plan to execute these events on a monthly basis. This idea was an experiment, and a method of teaching ourselves how to run events like these, to gauge feedback from the community and the level of support from local businesses. Our initial idea was that these events would also help revive life in the Downtown District. We learned a LOT about what to do (and not to do) to make our event successful, and though it sometimes seemed like an uphill climb, we all agree that the event definitely helped our organization build some momentum.
Our first Second Saturday event was in July, and we concluded the Second Saturdays for 2021 this past weekend on December 11. All of the events were somewhat themed, and we displayed artwork at almost all of them. We featured artwork from artists in Seminole, as well as other cities all over Oklahoma. Our events also featured various fun things like food trucks, pink ladies (sock hop), snow cones, sidewalk art, live music, open-mic performances, children’s activities, crafts, SANTA, classic cars, parades, karaoke, vendors, shopping, dancing and more!
The December event was the annual Chocolate Festival. Though the Second Saturdays were a new concept, the Chocolate Festival is a Seminole tradition that dates back to the 1980s. Even after the arts council disbanded originally, the city kept the tradition alive and passed the torch back to us a few years ago. This event also serves as a fundraiser for our organization. Our community and local businesses pulled together to submit a mountain of chocolate donations, which we sold alongside raffles which featured a couple of children’s bikes. I’m pleased to report that we were able to raise $1,160! We want to express our thanks to all the citizens and city officials who came out to support us and made our event successful.
Back in October, some of our board members attended the Oklahoma Arts Council Conference in Muskogee, and we were taught the importance of inclusion, and hope. They expressed to us how hope is the fuel that drives us to reach our goals, and for our community to thrive, our citizens have to have hope as well. As leaders, it is our responsibility to create opportunities for hope; we intend to do this by establishing public art, supporting and promoting local artists, collaborating with local schools and youth programs, and promoting our mission with a hands-on mindset. We hope that we’re able to inspire more members of our community to band together to form an ART community in Seminole.
This year we established a community cupboard, and have received lots of positive feedback about how helpful it has been for the needy folks in our community. It had been used so much in such a short time, the doors fell off and needed to be replaced. A wonderful volunteer, Alan Chastain, showed up and helped repair it in no time. The community cupboard is available to everyone; you leave what you don't need, and take what you do. It is “self-managed” with council members stopping by occasionally to clean up and organize it. It is located just west of the Lord’s Community Church building on Seminole Street.
Moving into 2022, our plan is to take a little while off in the first quarter to regroup and discuss plans moving forward. We have already collectively decided to no longer proceed with the Second Saturday Events. The event was too frequent for how much time we had available to properly execute it. However, our hope is that the Seminole Best Buds (our local cannabis patient civic club, number one supporters, and arts council partners) will be able to continue hosting these events, and we hope to have a presence at their events as well.
Over the year we gained over a dozen new memberships, and raised over $5,000 through events and donations. Next year, I’m hoping our fundraising goal will be twice that much, and that we exceed it two-fold! Gotta dream big! Stay tuned for updates as the new year unfolds!
