Much music
Schneider Creek Porch Party rocks
KITCHENER — Take eight porches, add some bright sunshine, a lot of happy people, and a few musicians and you have the makings of a fun summer afternoon in downtown Kitchener.
“This is my neighbourhood, I was really excited about it,” said Jane Pellar who was sitting comfortably in a camp chair listening to music on Whitney Place, at the second annual Schneider Creek Porch Party.
Bordered by Queen, Courtland and Mill streets, the porch party is one of several in the city that have taken musicians out of their usual musical venues and put them on residents’ porches.
“This is bringing arts and culture together,” said Pellar who was so pleased with last year’s event, she joined the organizing committee.
“It’s a nice way to gather the neighbours.”
Pellar has lived on the street for 25 years and said the area is perfect for such an event.
“This is a defining feature of an old neighbourhood: big porches and narrow streets,” she said. “It’s especially nice when everyone comes out.”
Community developer and porch party founder, Cameron Dearlove, moved to the area about four years ago and said it was easy to find homeowners willing to turn their porches over to musicians plus have strangers sitting all over their lawns for the Saturday event.
“We knocked on every door,” he said. “Last year, our first time, people were ‘what do you want to do with my porch?’”
As for the musicians “they came out of the woodwork. We sent the message out through social media and we got 24 performers.”
The musicians covered several musical genres, from country to folk to world music. The Waterloo Regional Down Syndrome Society’s Buddy Choir, made up of developmentally delayed kids and adults, seems to have one of the largest audiences, everyone enthusiastically cheering on the singers.
All musicians at the event were paid an honorarium, money granted from the City of Kitchener’s neighbourhood fund.
The first half of the event started at 3 p.m. and took place at Joseph Schneider Haus museum which has the mother of all front porches, enough space for big brass band. Just down the street, another concert was going on at Bread and Roses housing co-operative. The second session ran from 4 to 6:30 p.m. on the front porches of homes on Benton, Whitney and Mitchell streets. In some cases, there was a lot of overlapping of sound but this is all a learning experience, said Dearlove.
He said several of the musicians live in the neighbourhood and that their talents came as a surprise to neighbours who had no idea. The event also provided unique opportunities: resident Karen Lord lead a yoga class, kids set up lemonade stands, Four All Ice Cream was offering a few varieties of the homemade treat, a couple of families were selling hotdogs, S&S Pottery provided supplies for a neighbourhood art project where visitors decorated their own little clay fish which was then fired and will eventually be hung in a public display.
The Working Centre’s Recycle Cycles was providing free bicycle repairs and tune-ups on the spot. Other organizations such the Blue Dot campaign and REEP Green Solutions, set up information kiosks to talk about their environmental projects.
This brings arts and culture together. It’s a nice way to gather the neighbours. JANE PELLAR, RESIDENT