Good night out
The city’s first Metta Night Market fair at Neighborworks Blackstone Valley drew a big crowd and there was plenty of food and music to go around.
WOONSOCKET — The first Metta Night Market fair at Neighborworks Blackstone Valley, 40 South Main Street, drew a big crowd indoors and out despite a period of light rain Friday night.
Patrons of the Bugg’D Out BBQ booth gathered under a white tent set up outside the residential and community complex to eat plates of charcoal roasted BBQ pulled pork and sweet bourbon BBQ grilled chicken over rice.
The booth also served seasoned fries, pulled pork nachos and smoked kielbasa rolls with sauerkraut.
Jermaine “Bugg” Robinson said he was using hardwood charcoal mixed with red oak as a bed of heat for the slow roasting was getting plenty of orders. The BBQ sweet bourbon chicken was one of the more popular items on the menu he put together for the event, Robinson noted.
Robinson usually works as a mobile food service operation at events like Autumnfest, but recently signed up to make use of the indoor kitchen at the community center for special engagements like Metta Night.
“The crowd is excellent. The weather wasn’t perfect but the people still came out,” Robinson noted. “It’s been non-stop all night.”
The gathering of a variety of small business vendors and members of the city’s multicultural community gave people plenty of things to look over or buy.
Jackie Dowdy, a Neighborhood Health member advocate, took advantage of the gathering to pass out flyers for the backto-school celebration she was coordinating at St. James Baptist Church on South Main Street Saturday morning. The annual event gives kids a backpack stuffed with school supplies for the new school year, starting Aug. 31, and Dowdy said it also allows their families to meet representatives of 21 different family support and school groups.
“They will be providing families with information they can use throughout the school year,” Dowdy said. There will be information on food assistance, utility service support, housing and academic support programs provided by the Woonsocket Education Department and its partner agencies, she noted.
Dowdy brought along her daughter Genesis and friends D’Anna Bothelho, 14, and Taylor Tempest, 15, to help out with the flyer distributions.
Inside the small business table area, Krystl Frazer was displaying candles and aromatherapy products she markets for Scentsy. Frazer said she had signed up as vendor with Elite ACE, a local arts, crafts, and events small business group Tara Cruz organized to serve gatherings like Friday’s Metta Night Market. “I’ll also be here for the Saturday Market tomorrow,” noted Frazer, who had her daughter, Sequiera, along for company.
Cruz said the arts and crafts events group does events like Friday’s market but also an “Eat, Play, and Shop” calendar where the members set up at different locations such as Patriots Diner, Empire Buffet, A&W Root Beer in Smithfield and Adeline’s Speakeasy in Cumberland for a evening mixing dining with crafts.
“We bring in a lot of people who may not have been to that location before,” she said. And that ends up being good for both the restaurant or business location and the crafters and small businesses that participate.
Stacey Cloutier of LuLaRoe, a California-style clothing and fashion business, said she began working the small business as way to occasionally get out of her home but has found it is really something she loves to do.
“It helped me to become a part of this community,” she said while watching the people participating in Brandon Contreras’ Paso Sensual Line Dancing lesson on the open floor of the center.
“It gets me out my house and then I help other people do the same thing,” she said of her fashion consulting work.