By Emily Bishop

Saturday, July 24 was one of the hottest days of the year, but the hosts of the second fundraiser for the McLean Mural project stayed in the kitchen and showed that they could take the heat. 26 people bought $20 tickets so that they could go to three homes and enjoy good food and conversation. A last minute attack on one of the families by a stomach bug meant that plans were shifted to entertain at just two homes. Leslie Thompson and Mark Morrison of Young Avenue were first on the list followed by June and Justin Hurt of Evelyn Avenue. The fundraiser was enjoyed by many CY residents as well as friends from Central Gardens and the Overton Square area.

The Progressive Potlucks provide a fun way to raise money and meet new people, but the name of the event is a bit misleading. Although the event is progressive (going from one house to another), it is not acutally a potluck. The hosts provide all of the food and beverages. Watch for annoucements from the CYCA about the next Progressive Dinner for the McLean Mural on the website cooperyoung.org.

By June Hurt

For those of you who missed the opportunity to show your support and participate in the May McLean Mural fundraiser, you have another chance in July! We are excited to announce that there will be a second Progressive Potluck on Saturday, July 24th. The first Progressive Potluck was impressive indeed, so the pressure is on for another group of Cooper-Young neighbors to create one more night to remember. Tickets will be on sale soon so keep your eyes open and get ready to have a wonderful evening with your friends and neighbors raising money for a great community art project. Tickets are $20, to researve your spot email June at cyca.june@att.net or call 901-488-0022.

By Kristan Huntley

For those of you who enjoyed the article entitled “Celebrate with a party for a project” and have been eagerly awaiting the first progressive potluck fundraiser for the McLean Mural Project, you don’t have to wait much longer!

On the evening of Saturday, May 22nd, the first progressive potluck will officially kick off. There will be approximately five households in Cooper-Young that will serve as hosts and open their homes, lawns, and decks to around 40 hungry mural supporters. Since this is the first progressive potluck fundraiser we have held, we want to keep it small and intimate; therefore, the potluck tour group will be divided into two groups of around 20 so that they will be manageable for both the hosts and the attendees. The tours will start on Philadelphia at the home of Chad Ahren and Beth Tidball as well as the home of Robert and Sharron Johnson. The tour will then proceed to Evelyn at the home of Brad Gilmer and Sarah Kyle. From Evelyn, the party will move one block over to Nelson at the home of Andy and Sydney Ashby. At each stop, you, the lucky potluck ticket holder, can enjoy tapas (fancy word for finger foods), meet neighbors you may not have met before, make some new friends, and then journey on to the next stop to further partake in the gastronomical experience. It is not too far to walk between stops if you want to work up an appetite, or you are free to drive as well. Kids are welcome to join in, but all adults and kids over 12 must have a potluck ticket.

The progressive potluck will culminate at the home of Patrick Miller and I. We will be opening our backyard to guests and have ice cream and cold beer for an after-dinner sugar rush. You will have one extra-special treat as well: live music! The Stand-Ins will be rocking out, and the wonderfully talented Jeremy Stanfill, formerly of Streetside Symphony, will be performing. Some good ol’ rock music is just what the doctor ordered to fight off that after-dinner nap you know you want to take. And, parents, the live music is also a kid-friendly event, so they are free to boogie ‘til their hearts are content (and then sleep well that night!).

Tickets will be $20 per person. Since the progressive potluck hosts are generously donating their time, homes, and food, all the proceeds will be going to help fund the McLean Art Mural Project. Good food, good friends, good cause. You can’t go wrong! Tickets will go on sale soon, so keep your eye on cooperyoung.org, and make sure that you are signed up on the Cooper-Young mailing list for the announcement. Also, if you would like to host a stop on one of the later progressive potluck parties in the coming months, please let me know at k.huntle@yahoo.com, or you may contact Maggie Cardwell with the CYCA at 901-272-2922 or info@cooperyoung.org.

By Kristan Huntley

Let’s face it—Cooper-Young will get together and have a party for pretty much any reason, be it the annual Night Out, to support the Cooper-Young Festival 4-Miler runners, or whatever other happy occasion comes up. Well, here is a chance to party and hang out with your neighbors while raising money for the community!

I am happy to announce that we have received the green light from the city to proceed with the McLean Mural Project. This is a major milestone in the Mural Project because we can now proceed with raising the funds needed. As stated in the March edition of the LampLighter, the anticipated cost of the project is between $10,000 and $15,000, with a completion goal of late summer or early fall. With great excitement, we are switching to fundraising mode and kicking it into high gear. We are exploring the possibility of corporate sponsorship and trying to locate local businesses that may be interested in leaving a lasting mark in Cooper-Young (so if you know of anyone or a business that may be interested, please direct them our way!), but, at this time, we are mainly relying and planning on private donations.

So, this is where the parties come in. Everyone knows fundraising is hard work, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be fun! One idea that was suggested to the Beautification Committee is to hold progressive potluck parties this coming spring and summer. If you have never had the occasion to attend one of these potluck parties, basically there is one or maybe two smaller dishes at each home along the potluck route, and folks go from home to home enjoying each dish, spend time talking to friends (and making some new ones), and then move to the next home and repeat the prior steps.

For the hosts, the progressive potluck parties are easier than hosting an entire party on your own because you only have to take care of one dish, be it an appetizer, a salad, an entrée, or a sweet treat, and you don’t have to create and manage an invite list on your own. Therefore, the host has more time and energy to enjoy friends, neighbors, and the other food (because we all know that food that others made tastes better).

The Mural Project fundraiser would be very similar, but with a Cooper-Young spin. The progressive potluck is still in the planning phase, but we are hopeful that residents of Cooper-Young will volunteer their homes, their front lawns, or even their back decks and yard to host a stop in the progressive potluck. In typical Cooper-Young style, we want folks to make it their own, though. Do you have kids or know what kids enjoy? Feel free to make your stop the place that all the cool kids want to go! Are you musically inclined? We all love good music, so please play away! And you don’t have to do it alone—get a couple of friends together, pick a house, and go for it! We will ask the progressive potluck guests to purchase a ticket for the event (right now, we are thinking around $20), and, with that ticket, they can enjoy all the food, music, and Cooper-Young merriment our neighborhood has to offer.

Interested or want more information? Please feel free to drop me a line at k.huntle@yahoo.com. Also, please don’t forget the March poll on the cooperyoung.org site, and let us know through that if you are interested, as well.