Month: March 2019

Randy is a fifth generation eastern Kentuckian who served as folk arts director for 25 years at the Hindman Settlement School, an institution that has served mountain youth since 1902 (attended by some of Jean Ritchie’s siblings). He plays several different stringed instruments, but he specializes in banjo and banjo history, playing several different banjos from Africa to Appalachia, particularly banjo styles and tunes from Knott County, KY. Banjo pickers, both men and women, from this region used a variety of techniques and tuning on the banjo.

Randy serves the region in several different capacities. He calls dances, plays at the nursing home, advocates for miners, and searches for economic opportunities in a just transition from coal to more sustainable future. He has represented the region at the Smithsonian Festival on the national mall.

Randy will be joined by his son, Gabriel Dansereau, fiddler and jazz guitar player, just graduating from the University of North Carolina Greensboro School of Jazz. Join us for stories and songs from the mountains.
http://www.rwilsonbanjo.com

At Lakewood UCC:
3/22: Randy Wilson & Gabriel Dansereau, Friday night, 7PM
3/23 Saturday Afternoon Square Dance with Jenny & the Stray Dogs and Randy Wilson calling. 1-4PM
2601 54th Ave. S., St. Petersburg, FL 33712
Contact: Yoko Nogami

On the final day of the five-city, two-week “4 for Fair Food Tour,” nearly 500 protesters – equal parts farmworkers, students, and community members – wove as one through the University of Florida’s picturesque campus in a colorful and boisterous demonstration. They were fed up with the UF administration’s willingness to turn a deaf ear to students’ concerns, calling on UF President Kent Fuchs to cut the university’s contract with Wendy’s, without further delay, until Wendy’s joins fast-food industry leaders McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway, Chipotle, and Taco Bell in requiring its tomato suppliers to meet the stringent human rights standards of the Presidential medal-winning Fair Food Program.

The CIW’s sincerest thanks go out to all the allies who worked tirelessly to organize last week’s march, and all the actions of the 4 for Fair Food Tour, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, to Ann Arbor, Michigan. The logistics of housing, feeding, and transporting a busload of souls from Immokalee (two buses, in fact, once the tour hit Gainesville!) on an odyssey covering thousands of miles, from cold climes to warm, with impressive actions and presentations at every stop along the way, cannot be overestimated. And the tour’s conclusion on Thursday in Gainesville would never have been possible without the selfless assistance of innumerable members of the vast – and fast-growing – Fair Food nation. Now safely back home in Immokalee, all of us extend our deepest gratitude to all of you.

For more photos of the event go to ciw-online.org. To read an article about the coalition’s efforts to get Wendy’s to join the Fair Food Program see The New York Times.

Now that we have proclaimed St Pete to be a City of Compassion and a City of Peace; how do we heal the pains of our past and restore mutual understanding and respect?

Shawn Mulford, Dine’ (Navajo), joins us from the Four Corners of the southwest to speak about the roots of Indigenous People’s Rights and what we can learn about sustainability from the peoples who embrace it as a way of life.

Join The Open Partnership Education Network (OPEN) next Saturday, March 9th as their distinguished guest helps to re-ground us in the importance of reconnecting humans to nature.

Date: Saturday, March 9, 2019
Time: 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
Presentation + engaged Q&A

Location: The Pole Barn at Pioneer Village
Boyd Hill Nature Preserve
3130 31st Street South, St. Petersburg, FL 33712
(Enter at Gate #2 for parking)

Free and open to the public ~ all are welcome!

Register online.