Local Las Vegas Chefs and their families come together weekly to distribute fresh foods to Las Vegas local and neighboring communities.
The kindness shown by Las Vegas locals has only grown since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Locals are taking time out of their days to come out and make sure that community members have essential food items.
Chefs4Vegas is a recently formed group of local chefs that organize weekly food distributions to support the Las Vegas community. Thanks to a grant from the USDA, Get Fresh, a local produce vendor built 25 pound boxes of fresh produce to compliment the partnership with Chefs4Vegas. On distribution days, deliveries are made by 8am for the event to start promptly at 9am. This weekly event is set to serve up to 300 families in a drive by, contactless setting.
Volunteers handing out children’s coloring books
“Our overall goal is to help our community through the best way chefs know how, through food.” Said Chef Jon Batista, President of Chefs4Vegas and owner of the Your Panadas food truck.
To date, Chefs4Vegas has delivered over 15,000 boxes (188 tons) of fresh produce to churches, community centers, families, and other key sites experiencing food insecurities.
Chefs4Vegas has now been granted a 501c3, which acknowledged them as a full-fledged non-profit organization. Recognized by Clark County Commissioner, Tick Segerblom, the chefs were awarded a proclamation as a testament to the dedication of the entire group helping locals in a time of crisis.
June 24th was another big day for Chefs4Vegas as they traveled to McGill, Nevada to set up a food pantry for that community. They served over 1,200 community members including members in Ely and White Pine County.
The novel Coronavirus disease, COVID-19 is creating an evolving situation with varied impacts felt in our city and around the world. That being said, it is crucial that organizations like Chefs4Vegas continue to carry out these charitable events.
Please support their initiative by following them on social media and donating to their mission.
Please share your comments about Chefs4Vegas and their supportive efforts in the comment section below.
Las Vegas locals gather at Kianga Isoke Palacio Park to stand and speak up for lives ended by police brutality and racism.
For centuries, a countless number of innocent black lives have been taken from their families and communities due to authority brutality, hate and carelessness. Breonna Taylor, George Floyd,Sandra Bland,Trayvon Martin and many, many more armless lives are gone but not forgotten.
Throughout the city of Las Vegas, community members are coming together to show their support to end the unfair practices of the American criminal justice system. These practices punish and kill black and brown community members at a higher rate than white counterparts for crimes that rarely differ.
“It’s so important for us to be having these conversations: all of us. It’s time for all of our voices to be heard, with change and justice as the result.” Says Kiana K., event attendee.
Minister Vance “Stretch” Sanders organized a standing rally of community members at Kianga Isoke Palacio Park also known as Doolittle Park on the historic westside of Las Vegas. This rally then led to a candlelight vigil remembering those who have lost their lives to racism and police brutality.
Locals from different cultural backgrounds came together to bring awareness to the long suffering and discriminating behavior imposed on black members in society. They celebrated black culture with the singing of the Black National Anthem, Lift Every Voice and Sing, a viewing of traditional African drumming and dancing, and a tap dance presentation.
Community speakers came to share their voice and encouragement, including former Nevada Assemblyman, Gene Collins.
Waters and snacks were distributed to event attendees during the 93 degree weather protest.
Minister Stretch spoke of the goal to convince state officials to sign a bill that charges, convicts and fires officers that use excessive force during civil confrontations.
Every voice within the community lends a push for change. This peaceful protest/vigil was a clear demonstration of progress to achieving these goals, but it does not stop here.
What is your contribution or thoughts on the #BlackLivesMatter cause within our community?
Three Square strives to feed the community of Las Vegas during the Coronavirus pandemic.
The Coronavirus has taken a toll on the world, but Las Vegas locals will not let this pandemic stop the good works of keeping our community solid. In mid-March Three Square Food Bank implemented an Emergency Food Distribution Strategy in response to COVID-19.
In an effort to serve as many community members as possible, Three Square collaborated with select agency partners and volunteers located in key regions throughout Las Vegas Valley. These volunteers assisted with the distribution of food at 40 emergency food distribution sites. Palace Station was one of these sites!
Photo credit: @JeffScheid
Starting March 11, Three Square implemented a disaster response plan to address the following: school and business closures, drastic declines in retail food donations, social distancing limitations on volunteer efforts, reduced on-site staff support, and the need for low-contact food distributions. These strategies were put in place to make sure that the Las Vegas community still had access to food during these uncertain times.
Photo credit: @JeffScheid
The Nevada National Guard was also called to respond and help Three Square with their initiatives. Soldiers helped direct traffic as cars lined up to receive their goods.
There have been a number of changes since that time, including the number of emergency food distribution sites as well as locations, hours and dates of operation. A current updated list of distribution sites can be found at three square.org/help.
Since the beginning, Three Square has increased weekly food distribution from 1 million pounds to 1.3 million pounds—the equivalent of 250,000 meals per week. With nearly 30,000 calls to the Three Square call center, about 6.5 million meals have been distributed since March 16th.
Photo credit: @JeffScheid
Three Square is a Southern Nevada food bank that brings together the resources, the experience and the passion of the people and businesses of Southern Nevada to make sure children, individuals and seniors receive the food they need.
Three Square has created a Coronavirus Emergency Food Fund to help them remain nimble in responding to food assistance needs across the valley. For more information on how you can donate to the Three Square Coronavirus Emergency Food Fund, please visit threesquare.org or call at (702) 644-3663.
Please share your comments about Three Square’s service to the community in the comment section below.
Las Vegas locals support the Nevada Burn Foundation to help send local kids to Burn Camp.
On Saturday May 30th, Las Vegas locals gathered at Sunrise Coffee with the Firefighters of Southern Nevada Burn Foundation to support burn victims around the city. The community showed their support to the Nevada Burn Foundation’s mission to send burn-injured children to Burn Camp this summer. To support this initiative, the Nevada Burn Foundation, Sunrise Coffee, and Mothership Coffee Roasters hosted a pop-up event called, Coffee for a Cause.
Volunteer firefighters from around the Las Vegas Valley served coffee, shared a coffee with patrons, and helped sell the official specialty Burn Foundation coffee bag packaged by Mothership Coffee Roasters. The community showed their support by attending curbside or dining in. All proceeds of the coffee bag sales are sent to the Burn Foundation. The Burn Foundation is represented by all fire departments in Southern Nevada. These proceeds will send children to Burn Camp this summer.
Burn Camp, also known as Camp Beyond the Scars is a camp for kids throughout Southern Nevada and Southern California. This one week camp supports kids that have been burned in fire-related incidents. It helps kids see beyond their own scars by learning who they are on the inside and that they are not just the scars that cover their bodies. The camp includes archery, swimming, group interaction, a ropes course and many other activities towards growth and facing their fears.
Each year, the UMC Burn Center helps hundreds of families heal from their fire injuries and trauma. While someone’s insurance may cover most of their physical rehabilitation, it oftentimes does not help these people reintegrate with their normal lives.
Later this year the Burn Foundation is also preparing for its annual Firefighter Auction. The auction raises funds for their Burn Survivor Initiative, which provides support for families, children, and individuals through burn injuries and catastrophes.
For more information about the Burn Foundation’s Burn Survivor Initiative visit nvburn.org/rise
Please share your comments about Coffee for a Cause in the comment section below.
Each meal consists of a combination of rice, soy, dry veggies and nutritional packets. An assembly line and stations are organized by a Rise Against Hunger representative to monitor and ensure sanitation and precision for each meal.
This event is providing meals for two hundred and twenty-six days a year and guarantees that these children are getting fed. Meals are distributed through schools and orphanages primarily in seventy-four countries within Africa and Central America.
“If a child is not being fed, the last thing on their mind would be learning something.” Says event organizer, Robert Bridel. “Their mind is focused on where their next meal is coming from”.
Robert Bridel – Event Organizer
This event is an international benefit to hunger with a community effort to support. It gives people who want to feed hungry children a hands on opportunity to come together for the global cause.This initiative is very hands-on and kids are encouraged to participate. Children age 5 and up can participate in Rise Against Hunger’s meal packaging program. There are a variety of jobs throughout the assembly line process that can accommodate young children and people with special needs.
Rise Against Hunger is an international hunger relief organization that distributes food and life-changing aid to the world’s most vulnerable, mobilizing the necessary resources to end hunger by 2030.
Rise Against Hunger meal packaging volunteers produce millions of nutritious meals annually that are then distributed to partners in countries around the world. Rise Against Hunger ensures the distributed meals are used as a tool to change lives by promoting education, improving students’ health and nutrition, addressing gender inequalities, stimulating economic growth and fighting child labor.
“This event is one of the most exciting things to be a part of.” Says attendee, Jim F. “It’s a lot of fun and it makes a difference in the world. We have people from every walk of life here. People read about it in the media and just showed up to help and be a part of a great event, there’s well over one-hundred people here.
By providing an immensely fulfilling, impactful and fun experience for volunteers, this event serves as a platform to educate people about hunger, what they can do about it, and to inspire them to take further action.
Please share your thoughts about Las Vegas local efforts to decrease world hunger.
Locals gather at the Las Vegas Historic Fifth Street school to discuss accessibility and equality.
This Las Vegas Arts Council believes that every person should be treated equally and appropriately. This year the Arts Council hosted an IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) Summit. The IDEA Summit is a workshop for concerned locals to join together and discuss their different experiences and convene on ways to make public places accessible and comfortable for all.
This workshop series is specifically designed for arts and cultural leaders in nonprofits, municipalities, and public institutions. During this two-day workshop, participants explored the intersection of arts and implicit biases in creative workspaces. Through round-table discussions, participants assessed cultural assumptions: how they are developed, sustained, reinforced in arts and cultural planning. The overall goal was to not only recognize and respect fellow creative community members but to also reflect and reconcile on the differences.
“This discussion is highly interactive and rooted in deep personal sharing and reflection.” Says attendee Raina S.
By starting at the core with a holistic approach, participants sat in small round table groups and had the option to share their own societal biases. All participants were able to assess not only the biases within their work environment, but the biases that they may have personally and the origins.
Las Vegas Arts Council Leaders
While focusing on creative biases and biases against people with disabilities in the art world; attendees were able to explore how their personal biases affect their workspaces, introspects into cultural planning, hiring, and other practices.
The Las Vegas Arts Council holds this event for Las Vegas locals to open dialogue on ways to make Las Vegas more accessible and accommodating for all living within the city. Continuing to have this conversation with feedback can generate workshops that encourage other voices to come to the table to build bridges within the community.
For this event, the goal is not for immediate solutions. The purpose is for different perspectives to start the needed conversations. Las Vegas is a town that is ever changing and it’s important to make sure that as Vegas changes, everyone can access and feel comfortable in it!
Las Vegas locals share ideas, skills and techniques to found their very own tech business start-up.
Throughout America, thousands of tech hands join together to form and foster ideas and turn them into actual working prototypes. Every year Las Vegas’ innovative locals come out and share their solutions to worldly problems and meet talented like-minded individuals to help solve them.
Startup Weekend Las Vegas 2019 took place at the Work in Progress workshop in Downtown Las Vegas. This 54-hour event was the perfect environment to join a team, create a prototype, validate your business model, and receive feedback from experienced entrepreneurs, all in one weekend.
“In the entrepreneurial startup world, it’s a little bit tricky to get started.” Says Kenny Eliason, founder of Work in Progress and organizer of Tech Startup Weekend Las Vegas. “This is a great opportunity for locals in Las Vegas to get their ideas off of the ground that they’ve only imagined.”
Vegas locals pitched their ideas, listened to others and voted for the ones they found to be most interesting. Ideas pitched and potential problem-solving concepts spanned from social to educational to financial, environmental, and other issues. Teams were formed, integrating diverse skill sets (coding, digital marketing, digital design, etc.).
Over the course of the weekend locals were challenged to create a prototype of their MVP, or minimum viable product, that fit the needs of their specific target customer. Experienced mentors and volunteers were around during the process to provide feedback, advice, through helpful solutions and tips to participants.
The specific focus theme for the projects of this year’s Startup Weekend was travel and hospitality. On the last day, a panel of judges listened to each of the different pitches.
This annual event was created for Las Vegas locals with an idea and would like to test it out in a safe, constructive space. For the seasoned programmer, the novice designer and others, Startup Weekend has become the place to make connections, learn new things, and grow. Because there is no age restriction, you can even catch a few high schoolers mixed in the bunch.
Whether you like to solve worldly problems that are heavy on your mind, gain experience, or just meet new entrepreneurs and friends Las Vegas Startup Weekend is the place to be. You will not want to miss it in 2020.
Please share your comments about Las Vegas Startup Weekend in the comment section below.
Las Vegas locals gather at the West Charleston Library to share personal stories of tribulation, recovery and strength.
Raquel Sharper – Event Speaker
Just like many around the world, as Las Vegas locals we learn to live and grow through our different life tragedies and not to stay in the stage of feeling stuck. In 2016, a group was formed for individuals to come together and encourage one another locally in Las Vegas. This group is called the Unstuck Happiness community. The Unstuck Happiness community features a Happiness Conference for locals to come, meet others and share how they have overcome their hardships.
The creator of the Unstuck Happiness Conference, John Polish invites speakers around the city that have powerful stories to share about how they pushed through tragedy to follow their dreams. This conference allowed speakers to share the exact strategies they used to move beyond difficult the circumstances they have faced.
John Polish – Unhappiness Conference Founder
“I met others who craved to know that they weren’t alone. This sparked the idea to have a conference to create this community of support, here in Las Vegas.” Said creator, John Polish.
This event is set for attendees to interact with speakers and other attendees for opportunities to build lasting relationships in the community.
Ashley King was an attendee at a previous conference and was inspired to share her own story at this year’s event. She spoke at this current conference about a great tragedy in her life and how moving to the Las Vegas area and being apart of the Unstuck community has helped her break through.
Ashley King – Event Speaker
“Seeing the different perspectives and hearing the stories of others allowed me to step outside myself and see life through someone else’s experience.” Says Ashley King. “This led to me being open to sharing my own story this year.”
The Unstuck Happiness Conferences brings together a group of speakers within the Las Vegas area who have all overcome tremendous adversity and have emerged as an inspiration to others. Whether an attendee or a spectator, this experience is sure to get you Unstuck.
Please share your comments about the Unstuck Happiness Conference in the comments section below.
Local Las Vegans were invited to the Arts District Downtown Las Vegas to experience the Carribean Carnival festival like Vegas has never seen before.
The Carribean Carnival consisted of a daybreak party called Jaboulay (J’ouvert or Jouvay) and a parade of the bands the next day. Event organizer, Kelly Ann Wilson and her team were born and raised on the island of Trinidad and believe that it is a great idea to share their culture with fellow Las Vegas locals. Whether a Carribean islander or not, everyone is welcome to enjoy the Carnival festivities right inside their own neighborhood.
“It is something to look forward to for those who cannot travel back home for the actual Carnival festival and for those who may not know our culture.” Says organizer, Kelly Ann Wilson. “Interested Locals can also come and experience a taste of our Carribean culture.”
J’ouvert is also known as, Jouvay a
word that is derived from the French phrase “jour ouvert,” which means daybreak
or morning. In traditional Caribbean cultures, the parade starts early in the
morning and signals the start of the bacchanalia that is Carnival. So,
essentially, it is a party from dawn to dusk. Jouvay is celebrated in many
countries throughout the Caribbean.Traditionally,
the celebration involves Soca and Calypso music bands, dancers and attendees
following each band, parading through the streets. The festival starts well
before dawn and peaks a few hours after sunrise.
The roots of Jouvert in Trinidad go back over 200 years to 1783, with the arrival of French
plantation owners. The French never colonised Trinidad, however elements
of their culture remain. Carnival was introduced to Trinidad during slavery.Slaves were not allowed to attend the
masquerade balls of the French so they would stage their own version of carnival in their backyards using their own rituals
and folklore. They practiced imitating and
sometimes mocking their masters’ behavior at the masquerade balls.
The origins of street parties
associated with J’ouvert coincide with the emancipation from slavery in 1838.
Emancipation gave Africans the opportunity to not only participate in Carnival,
but to embrace it as an expression of their newfound freedom.
The traditions of J’ouvert vary widely
throughout the Caribbean. In Trinidad, Tobago and Grenada, a part of the
tradition involves smearing paint, powder, mud or oil on the bodies of
participants known as “Jab Jabs”. This is called playing mud.
“Jaboulay is an expression of freedom.
Pick up the paint, hop on the dance floor, be free and release.” Says
organizer, Kelly Ann Wilson. “Jaboulay is a taste of home that we are trying to
keep and stay true to. If you’re coming out and you want to have true, nice,
clean fun with great music and culture. J’ouvert is where to be!”
J’ouvert or Jouvay is at the heart of
Trinidad carnival, and is also celebrated in other Eastern Caribbean islands.
The Las Vegas Caribbean weekend was just a taste of the actual events that take
place in their homelands. It is the hope of many Las Vegas islanders that their
culture will and become more known in the Vegas areas.
Please share your
comments about J’ouvert in the comment section below.
