Council OKs downtown concert series

WOONSOCKET – The City Council Monday gave its blessing to a series of 10 concerts in River Island Park next summer, but now the hard part begins.

In order to win a $25,000 matching grant to finance the concert series, Neighbor-Works Blackstone River Valley has to convince enough supporters to vote for it online.

Neighbor-Works has applied for a Levitt Foundation AMP Grant to help underwrite the concert series, said Margaux Morisseau, director of community engagement for Neighbor-Works. Based in Los Angeles, the foundation is dedicated to promoting live music as a way to bring people together and strengthen communities. Every year it awards matching grants to 15 small- to mid-size cities to pay for concerts through AMP, an acronym that stands for “Amplify. Music. Place.”

Winners are selected, in part, based on the level of support they receive in online polling that takes place through the Levitt Foundation’s website, beginning Nov. 1. Morisseau said Neighbor-Works will make a formal announcement with more details when it launches a social media campaign in the days ahead. The Levitt Foundation will announce the winners in January.

To win, Morisseau said, Neighbor-Works will have to surmount the hurdle of the city’s population, which is small in comparison to other competitors and could put Neighbor-Works at a disadvantage in online polling.

“We’ve got to rally the troops,” she said. “We actually have a pretty solid social media plan that’s going to be announced so stay tuned. We’re hoping to at least get everybody in Woonsocket who is on social media to vote for it.”

To qualify for the grant, Neighbor-Works pledged to book a variety of national, regional and local musical performers who showcase the city’s diversity.

Headquartered on Front Street, the non-profit community development organization needed an affirmative resolution of support for the affair from the City Council, and advance booking of River Island Arts Park, in order to satisfy the Levitt Foundation’s application requirements. Although Councilman Richard Fagnant moved to table the request for a work session, the motion failed to win a second and Fagnant later joined the rest of the council, voting in favor of the organization’s petition.

“It was overwhelmingly approved and I think everybody’s anticipating positive string of events if they’re fortunate enough to get the grant,” said Council President Daniel Gendron.

Earlier this summer, Neighbor-Works got called on the carpet by some members of the council and local restaurateurs for promoting a series of outdoor festivals fea- turing gourmet food trucks. All complained that food truck events were too close to the Market Square restaurants on a busy night for dining out – all Fridays – posing unfair competition to brick-andmortar businesses.

As she spoke to the council Monday, Morisseau addressed what she called “rumors” that Neighbor-Works plans on calling in food trucks to support the concert series. Untrue, she said. “There will be no food trucks,” she said.

She said Mayor Lisa Baldelli-Hunt, one of several official “partners” of the concert series, came up with a “brilliant idea” of letting local restaurants take turns serving their unique menu items from a concession stand in the park, Morisseau said. Other partners include the Downtown Woonsocket Collaborative, Adam Brunetti Productions, Blackstone Valley Tourism Council and Michael Martin, a freelance organizer of volunteers for various causes..

Arguably, there are other parks in the city suitable for concerts, but Morisseau says River Island Park is best situated to help Neighor Works meets its goals of rekindling cultural and economic activity in the downtown area.

“In recent years our work has really taken a shift,” she said. “We continue to focus on rejuvenating horrible housing but it also encompasses economic development work,” she said. “Renewing and bringing activity to Main Street is a part of our community development work. Using art for place-making is one of our strategies.”

Neighbor Works must raise an additional $25,000 in donations and in-kind services on its own if it wins the grant. Currently about $7,000 in cash has already been pledged by Ciro’s, Savini’s Pomodoro, Soucy Insurance, the DWC and the Arts Den, an arts-based business cooperative on Main Street.

But Meghan Rego, who applied for the grant as Neighbor Works’ director of research and development, said the organization is still looking for more sponsors.

“I really hope we get this grant – I think it’s going to do awesome things for the city,” she said. “Hopefully it will help everyone love our city as much as we do.”

If all goes according to plan, there will be a concert in the park every Friday from June 29 to Aug. 31, 2018.

Acting on the request of Parks and Recreation Director Liz Kerrigan, the council agreed to waive the usual protocol of requiring payment in full for reserving the park on each of those occasions. Instead, members agreed to accept payment for just one – $35 – with the balance due upon confirmation that Neighbor-Works is a grant winner. If the application falls through, Kerrigan said the reservations will be canceled.

“This grant is designed to strengthen communities

through free concerts in underutilized outdoor public spaces,” Kerrigan said. “If selected, the series will feature diverse local, regional and national music representatives of Woonsocket’s unique culture.”

Neighbor-Works hasn’t started scouting for talent yet, but “we can’t wait to start brainstorming,” Morisseau said.

The Levitt Foundation – also known as the Mortimer & Mimi Levitt Foundation – is wholly dedicated to promoting music. The son of struggling immigrant parents, co-founder Mortimer Levitt grew up in Brooklyn, where his father worked as a street vendor at a Coney Island performance venue. Mortimer often joined his father at he park and was transfixed by the talented performers, but he was unable to afford admission to rides or shows.

“Listening to these performances surrounded by the beauty of Luna Park was magical to him and sparked his lifelong love affair with outdoor music,” his website bio says.

He went onto to become a wealthy clothing manufacturer and later established a philanthropic foundation dedicated to bringing live music to the masses.