Good Afternoon All,
This week was a bit of a hot mess juggling a few things so my usual Friday update was bumped to today. This is a long email - please take a few minutes to read through. You will have seen that we've had various city crews in the area trying to sort out our CafeTO installations. We now have a number of curb lane patios ready to open; a few that will be sorted early next week; and, the City will be coming in and replanting the barrier planters - sadly our grass plants just didn't survive this past winter. By this time next week we should be organized and have CafeTO fully up and running for the summer season.
BD Beats: Summer Music Festival:
This is just in time because next Saturday we're launching our Broadview Danforth BIA summer event! We haven't had an official event since the summer of 2019 so this is exciting. Our event is called BD Beats and is an outdoor music series that will run from June through to Labour Day weekend. Last summer we participated in the City's outdoor amplified music pilot. We didn't have much time to plan it out but we did have some local musicians playing and we realized that live outdoor music was a wonderful addition to our BIA. It brings a new life to our area; people enjoy the music while they're shopping or dining on one of our outdoor patios; it doesn't require a road closure or any resorting of patios and bike lanes. So with that in mind BD Beats was created.
We will be hosting local musicians in our two CafeTO parkettes and in the courtyard of the Carrot Common. The performance schedule is as follows:
Thursday nights: 6pm to 9pm in the parkette on the north side of Danforth in front of Cobs
Friday nights; 6pm to 9pm in the parkette on the south side of Danforth just east of 7 Numbers
Sunday afternoons: 1pm to 4pm in the Carrot Common courtyard by our ShowLoveTO heart
All of the music is being curated by Noonan's and Mandy's Bistro. A big thank you to Jane, Mandy and Richard for donating their time and expertise to this program. It's a lot of work and it is really appreciated.
We have also been lucky enough to welcome some generous local sponsors to the program:
Music Hub sponsors: The Carrot Common and Second Cup
CafeTO Accessibility Ramp sponsors: Choice Properties (an arm of Loblaws)
The Sunflower Project:
Next Saturday, June 4th at noon will be the official launch of our BD Beats series and we will have the Toronto Jazz Collective playing in the parkette in front of Cobs. In addition to wonderful music we will be helping out our BIA member Fiona Boylan, the owner of Cobs, and a local resident, Maya Fitzpatrick, with a sunflower fundraiser. Maya has been one of our most supportive local residents during the pandemic. She worked with Eszter and myself to roll out the Love of Local bag sales during the height of the lock downs. Maya has sponsored a family from the Ukraine - a mother and her 7 year old son, the husband is still in the Ukraine. The sunflower is the official flower of the Ukraine and Fiona and Maya's children will be selling some beautiful garden stake solar powered sunflowers and the proceeds will go directly to this family to help with some of their immediate expenses. These kiddos are determined and pretty good sales people so I have no doubt that the Sunflower Project will be a success. They have 100 sunflowers to sell next Saturday and I'm hoping that everyone can take a few minutes to join us starting at noon to purchase a perky sunflower and enjoy our BD Beats session!
Taste of the Danforth:
Most of you know that by now I would have been providing you with information on how to participate in Taste of the Danforth. Unfortunately the GreekTown BIA, who own the festival, are still trying to work out how to execute Taste this year. A lot has changed on the Danforth since the last Taste in 2019. We now have bike lanes and curb lane patios. GreekTown is hoping to be able to figure out the logistics so that Taste can take place - perhaps in a different format from past years. I will keep you all updated with any new information as it becomes available.
Attached is a sample copy of our BD Beats poster (note: we still need to add the Second Cup's logo). We will start circulating these posters in our BIA next week. The poster has a QR code which directs people to our website and the music schedule for the summer. If you would like to help promote the program by having a poster at your business please let me know.
Hope you all have a great weekend.