The Oak Ridge Farmers Market opened on Saturday, April 18. (Photo by Julio Culiat)
The Oak Ridge Farmers Market opened for the season on Saturday, April 18. Its the market’s 39th season.
The market will be open from 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays in Historic Jackson Square. It will also be open on Wednesdays beginning May 6.
Here’s what’s new at the market this year: [Read more…]
The Langston Hughes Library at the Children’s Defense Fund Haley Farm in Clinton will host an author session and book-signing event with Carolyn Maull McKinstry, author of “While the World Watched.” It will start at 3 p.m. in Haley Lodge on Sunday, April 19.
McKinstry is a survivor of the civil rights struggle and an eyewitness to the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, on September 16, 1963. The bombing resulted in the deaths of four young girls, all of whom McKinstry knew well. As a teenager, McKinstry marched under Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and bravely faced Bull Connor’s German shepherds and stinging fire hoses during the battle for equal rights in her hometown of Birmingham.
Now, nearly 50 years after the bombing, McKinstry is still an active member of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, serves as president of the Sixteenth Street Foundation, and works full time spreading her message of racial reconciliation.
A highly sought-after speaker, McKinstry has appeared on Oprah, 20/20, CNN, and MSNBC, and portions of her story have been featured in Life magazine and USA Today. She has made numerous television and documentary appearances, including Spike Lee’s documentary “Four Little Girls,” Soledad O’Brien’s “Black in America,” Brian Williams’s “Shades of Progress, Shadows of Hate,” the Poverty Law Center’s documentary “The Children’s March,” and Family Network’s “We Shall Not Be Moved.” [Read more…]
The Women’s Interfaith Dialogue of Oak Ridge has scheduled a group visit to the Alex Haley Farm in Clinton on April 6, and participants will enjoy a presentation and a lunch on site. Those who wish may stay for a 90-minute walking tour (for a $5 fee) of the expansive grounds.
Purchased in 1994 by the Children’s Defense Fund, the 157-acre Haley Farm is a countryside retreat consisting of guest cottages, chapel, meeting lodge, and library. The facility connects young leaders and activists with the heritage of the struggle for freedom, and it is where policy makers and community builders come to connect, recharge their spiritual and physical batteries, and brainstorm strategies. The Children’s Defense Fund and its many programs have transformed Haley Farm into a training ground for the next generation of leadership, advocacy, and service for children and families.
Haley Farm houses several programs for the CDF, including Freedom Schools. The Freedom Schools are “inspired by the civil rights movement’s Freedom Summer of 1964, when community leaders organized Black Americans to register to vote,” a press release said. The program has trained more than 6,000 high school and college-age leaders who serve first and then lead in order to increase service to institutions and individuals. These young leaders, in turn, teach “children ages 5 to 18 for six to eight weeks, integrating reading, conflict resolution, and social action in activity-based curricula.” [Read more…]
Project Linus of East Tennessee and the Children’s Defense Fund Haley Farm will host a Blanket Bee on Saturday at Haley Farm in Clinton.
The Blanket Bee is a gathering of friends, family, co-workers, and others to knit, crochet, quilt, sew, or make a no-sew fleece blanket for a child in need, a press release said.
Saturday’s event is scheduled from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The purpose is to make Project Linus blankets, share techniques for making blankets, encourage people to volunteer with Project Linus, and to raise awareness about Project Linus and the Children’s Defense Fund, a press release said.
“The bee will include plenty of demonstrations on making blankets, and visitors can make their own Project Linus bookmark or notecard,” it said.
