You may have noticed, we didn’t organize a First Friday Five fundraiser today. Or in June. The local online giving project started out in January with great success, but has since lost steam. Now we’re taking some time to “dream it all up again.”
The original concept was simple: soliciting $5 donations for a local nonprofit, on the first Friday of each month, towards a specific, tangible goal. And while so many of Chattanooga’s charitable organizations do great work, we have found that it can be difficult to quantify it in a way that makes sense for a First Friday Five fundraiser. Coincidentally or not, as the months went on, the goals became less specific and donations dropped.
We still believe First Friday Five has a lot of potential, so we’re looking for new ideas. At the suggestion of one of our editors, this may mean opening it up to include not just nonprofit charitable organizations, but also specific people or project ideas where our community of readers could make a difference.
So we’d like to hear from you: what are your ideas for First Friday Five?
Pictured below is Mayor Ron Littlefield, as seen in German publication Spiegel Online.
Write a caption for the photo in the comments section, and you might win…the respect and admiration of your fellow Chattarati readers. The winner will be selected by Chattarati over the weekend, and announced on Monday. And by the way, having other readers and friends vote your caption up (through the ‘Like’ option on each comment) will only improve your chances. Enjoy.
Lookouts and Fireworks: The Chattanooga Lookouts are at home tonight, with a 6:15 p.m. game against the Carolina Mudcats, with—naturally—fireworks following the game.
Star Trek at IMAX: We may have missed out on The Dark Knight, but IMAX is coming through for sci-fi fans, showing JJ Abrams’ Star Trek all this month. Showtimes for Star Trek are 7:00 p.m. and 9:20 p.m. Friday – Saturday, and 7:00 p.m. Sunday – Thursday nights.
New Binkley Brothers at Rock City: The Southern Music Weekends series continues at Rock City on Saturday and Sunday with music throughout the day by the New Binkley Brothers.
Chattanooga FC: Will their Facebook Challenge bring in 5,000 fans for their season-ending game at Finley? Either way, the games are exciting, the crowd is enthusiastic, and the beer is cold. And this Saturday night, they’re offering $1 shuttle rides to the riverfront so fans can catch fireworks after the game.
Pops on the River: Chattanooga’s biggest fourth of July celebration, Pops on the River needs no introduction. The Chattanooga Symphony and Opera is back, along with Dismembered Tennesseans and Tim and Sara King, to present a patriotic concert in Coolidge Park, followed by a fireworks display.
Ice Cream Social: Beat the heat Sunday afternoon at the Chattanooga Market’s Ice Cream Social featuring tasty treats from hometown favorite Clumpie’s as well as Bi-Lo, Bruster’s and Mayfield. A $5 ticket gets you a sampling of each ice cream and supports the Chattanooga Chambliss Shelter.
Did we miss something great? Share it in the comments.
Two Hamilton County residents addressed the Chattanooga City Council on Tuesday with concerns about the city’s plan to annex parts of the county. The residents live in the Stonewall Farms subdivision, near Hixson Pike. They were joined by supporting members of their neighborhood.
Resident Gene Hay asked the Council who his future representative will be, and what services he will receive in exchange for an increase in property taxes.
“Our subdivision is up for possible annexation. And I’d like to know which one of you Council members is going to be responsible for that area, so we can find out what I’m going to get for my $150 a month that I’m gonna have to pay for city taxes—versus my $20 a month for garbage collection,” he said.
The Department of Public Works begins the Brush on Demand service on Wednesday, July 1. The new service will replace scheduled monthly pickup of brush, debris, and leaves. Citizens wishing to have wood waste collected by the city will need to call 3-1-1 to report a pickup. Public Works crews will be routed daily to collection locations by request.
Brush on Demand, biweekly recycling pickup, and an additional garbage pickup day will save the city $750,000 to $1,000,000 [annually], according to the mayor’s office.
Garbage collection will continue as scheduled this week despite the holiday.
Former TN-GOP Chair, Robin Smith, will make a “major announcement” on Wednesday, July 1, according to a media advisory issued today. She is expected to formally announce a run for the Republican nomination for the 3rd Congressional seat in Tennessee. The seat is currently occupied by Zach Wamp, who is running for the GOP nomination in Tennessee’s 2010 gubernatorial race.
Friday morning, Bleu Hayes postedan email forward on Twitter about a customer’s recent experience at Boathouse, a local seafood restaurant. The email thread begins with a complaint from customer Craig Johnson—who claims a restaurant employee was unhelpful and misinformed him about health code rules—and follows the exchanges between Mr. Johnson and Lawton Haygood, General Partner of Boathouse. In the 48 hours since it was originally posted, the story has created an uproar in social networking circles, including heated reactions on Twitter and a “Boycott Boathouse” group on Facebook.
According to the original email, Johnson took his family to Boathouse for a Father’s Day meal, stopping along the way to pick up food from McDonald’s for his “particularly picky” three year old. Upon being seated at the restaurant, he was told that bringing in outside food was a violation of the health code. After being unable to reach a satisfactory resolution with a Boathouse employee, Johnson left the restaurant. Several days later, he sent an email to Boathouse, recounting his experience and pointing out, based on an email response from a State of Tennessee employee, that there is no health code rule against bringing outside food into a restaurant. Boathouse’s Haygood responded:
“You really should check with your Pediatrician, concerning a 3 year old having that much control over her nutritional program.” -Lawton Haygood, General Partner, Boathouse
You may be wondering, what happened to that Summer of Taco experiment? One day, we’re living, breathing taco, the next, nothing. We left you hangin’, guys.
Life, apparently, is what happened. Namely, big local news, enormous international events, and individual lives occupied by countless people and places.
But fear not, hungry reader. After a long hiatus from our summer fling, we’re back to our old judgments, armed with love, fellowship, and flour tortillas.
We revisited Summer of Taco with a trip to Tienda Jalisco on Main and Hawthorne. TJ doubles as a grocery store, but the food doesn’t suffer an ounce from this multi-tasking. We chose to judge tacos with chorizo, and tried both the traditional and all-dress variety. The first comes on a corn tortilla with onions, cilantro and lime; and all-dress is Americanized with Colby cheese and tomatoes.
Following a remark by the NPSL Insider that a league team—by extension, Chattanooga FC—can’t draw 5,000 attendants, Josiah Roe and Matt Davis have been working to prove that theory wrong. The pair started a Facebook event page for Chattanooga FC’s final home game with the intent of breaking the 5k wall. The game is on Saturday, July 4 at Finley Stadium. Think of this as Chattanooga’s version of Mythbusters.
We want to do our part in this social media experiment, so we urge you to lend your support to the local team, and kick off your independence day celebration at Finley Stadium.
This weekend’s weather forecast looks like a mixed bag, but as usual, there’s plenty to keep you busy around the Scenic City. Here are a few events worth penciling in.
Chattanooga Artists Reserve: Local artists Beth Gumnick and Tobi Weldon present the second annual Chattanooga Artists Reserve. This year’s show, scheduled for Saturday from 12:00 – 7:00 p.m. at the Gannon Art Center in Brainerd, features fifteen artists across a variety of mediums including paint, fiber, jewelry, soap and mixed media. According to Ms. Weldon, the sideshow theme created for the show represents the playful and unique flavor of the works on display:
“Our show is intentionally outside the mainstream, so we think the sideshow theme is a fun and fitting way to celebrate the idea of ‘curiosities never before seen by human eyes’ in keeping with the unique nature of Reserve works.” -Tobi Weldon
Mayor Ron Littlefield delivered his annual State of the City Address today at the Doubletree Hotel in downtown Chattanooga. The speech touched on Chattanooga’s successes in spite of America’s “great recession” and the achievements of Chattanooga’s public services departments before looking to the future and reminding attendees that “the best is yet to come.”
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