Asheville Mardi Gras Parade and Ball

This year's theme-"Homegrown, Fancy, and Free"
Sunday, March 6 · 3:00pm - 10:00pm
Downtown Asheville, and Pack's Tavern's Century Room

Everyone is invited to participate in, or simply spectate this family friendly spectacle. Asheville's Mardi Gras celebration is rapidly growing as more and more sparkles, feathers, and beads show up each year to march in our annual parade. The parade, led by this year's King and Queen, will be full of dancers, roller skaters, drummers and krewe's of colorful characters. The parade will line up in Pack's Square, NOT Walnut Street at 2:00 pm and will step off at 3:00 pm sharp, RAIN OR SHINE. We will then dance and march our way towards Walnut St, then to Lexington Ave, making a left on to Lexington, and then a right on to College St. Next, the parade will loop around Pritchard Park and up Patton Avenue to Pack Square. This is where the parade ends and the Mardi Gras Ball begins.

Interested in being a part of the parade? Gather your krewe of friends, family, classmates or co-workers or just yourself and come be a part of this great event. Feel free to get creative! Art cars and homemade floats are always welcome. Please register them on the Asheville Mardi Gras Facebook groups page. Remember that Asheville's Mardi Gras is a family friendly event and is “Homegrown, Fancy and Free”. Another great way to enjoy this event is to gather your friends and family, pull up a chair, sit back and watch the show! Bring a camera and be ready to catch beads.

After the parade is over around 4:00 pm, continue the fun and revelry at the Mardi Gras Ball in Pack's Tavern's elegant Century Room. Costumes are not required to enter the ball. This is a free event for the entire community to enjoy. There will be festive libations and extraordinary live music performed by Sirius B to keep us dancing all night long. For more information on the Parade or Ball, and for Mardi Gras events leading up to the parade day, check in with the groups page on Facebook under Asheville Mardi Gras.

Link

Grand Krewe at the Parade
Sunday at 12:00pm
Pack Square, Vance Monument/fountain area

Asheville Community Hoop Jam in Pritchard Park

TUESDAYS

The Asheville Community Hoop Jam is held in Pritchard Park every Tuesday from 5:30-7:30 p.m. through the end of September. The events offer opportunities to hoop it up for fun and exercise as George Pond (Snake Oil Medicine Show) DJs. In this video, we talk to organizer Melanie MacNeil and capture some participants’ sweet moves. (Video by Jake Frankel.)

Link | More Hoop Jam

Santa in Pritchard Park

We've got Saturdays with Santa again this year! Saturdays will be special at Pritchard Park because Santa will be stopping by from 10 - 11 am every Saturday right up until Christmas. Bring the kids and grandma and grandpa, too! Everyone loves Santa.

Stay in downtown after visiting Santa and enjoy lunch at one of our great restaurants, do some holiday shopping and then enjoy the Saturday Sizzle at Seven fireworks, presented by the Grove Park Inn and the Asheville Downtown Association.

SPUD Patrol

Come and volunteer for these SPUD Patrol Dates!

September 5, October 3, November 7, December 5

We now have coordinators for a new S.P.U.D. Patrol in Asheville, North Carolina! Chuck & Annette Hunner at 828-216-1422 or hunner@charter.net

Location in Asheville is Pritchard Park, downtown Asheville in the triangle formed by Patton Avenue, Haywood Street, and College Street.

Stay tuned for SPUD Reports from the beautiful city of Asheville, and thank you, Chuck & Annette!

Sign up in your city by emailing or calling the coordinators in your city below:


link

Drum Circle to receive new equipment

The Asheville Downtown Association will present several drums and accessories to the Asheville Drum Circle at 7 p.m. Friday.

“We are so fortunate to have this group of people who create this music in Pritchard Park,” said Byron Greiner, the president of the association's board of directors, in a statement. "The circle encourages participation and we are donating instruments to support their activities."

The association is donating a 55-gallon dun dun, two djembes, an ashiko, a cowbell, three sets of claves and three shakers.

The drum circle has been active since 2001 and takes place each Friday, weather permitting, in Pritchard Park, downtown.

Infuse Those Sunday Dol-drums

Are you up for it?

Brush off those winter blues by attending the Drum Circle at Pritchard Park on Sunday, February 8, 2009, @ 2:00 PM.

Forecast 62° and mellow.

Santa in Pritchard Park!

Kids of all ages can mail their letters to Santa at the North Pole Express mailbox in Pritchard Park. Santa arrives every Saturday at 9:30 - 11 AM to pick up his mail and spend some time with kids.

Event Contact Information:
Sandie Rhodes 828 628 1422

December 13 - 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM - FREE
December 20 - 9:30 AM - 11:00 AM - FREE

PRITCHARD PARK
Triangle intersection of Haywood St, College Ave, and Patton Ave
Asheville , NC 28801

2008 Pritchard Park 8

2008 Pritchard Park 8
Originally uploaded by anoldent

PERFORMANCE & INSTRUCTION IN THE PARK - just a few more weeks! Join Baraka Mundi from 5:30-7pm on Wednesdays at Pritchard Park on Patton & College. To see some beautiful shots from last week, visit www.flickr.com/photos/anoldent.

Wednesday - Asheville, NC
at Pritchard Park in Downtown Asheville

Summer 2008

October 5th Fundraiser: Spahgetti/Salad Dinner*Drum Circle*Live Auction

Stop by and buy a meal for a good cause before going to Pritchard Park!

River Guerguerian, Daniel Barber, Sunny Keach and Jerry Donoghue will be leading the drumming.

Starting 6:00 pm at Odyssey School in Montford (90 Zilicoa Rd.)

A new K-8 alternative school. The purpose of this event is to raise funds for Compassionate Communication class scholarships. This is one of the few school communities in the world that is making the commitment to train, parents, children, staff, and teachers in using Compassionate Communication (also known as Nonviolent Communication).

http://www.ashevilleccc.com/Sketty_Dinner.pdf

Tickets $12 adults, $8 kids (under 13), under 3 free.
To purchase tickets contact Ellie at
776-5514 or e-mail: Ellie100r@aol.com.

Asheville Food Not Bombs

Can You Volunteer Your Time?

Asheville Food Not Bombs is putting out a call for some help the next four Saturdays. They do such an outstanding job of feeding anyone who wants it at Pritchard Park with donated food from the (always happy to help) French Broad Food Co-op and bread from the City Bakery.

from the email:

This project was restarted by a group of primarily Warren Wilson College students but has since expanded to include a variety of cookers, servers, cleaners...

Overall, Food Not Bombs in Asheville has become a multi-generational, family-oriented, activist gathering of sorts where people from many different socio-economic backgrounds blend with others who they might not interact with on a day-to-day basis.

We especially need people to do the pick-up, cooking, serving, and cleaning for the following days:

-June 23rd
-June 30th
-July 7th
-July 14th

I am trying to put together a rough outline of folks who can commit to a task before I head out so that this project does not fall down while some of us are gone. If you are interested in helping out, please contact me at 303-929-9713 or jamim@riseup.net and I will give you more
information!
The Warrior Princess, Hattie

Drum Circle at Pritchard Park

feel the power of the drum
Originally uploaded by onelungbreathin.

great shot from flickr on last weekend's drum circle at Pritchard Park in Asheville, NC. Would you say this guy is feeling it?

Anti-SOA Circus Troupe

from my inbox:

Subject: SUPPORT CALL for Upcoming Anti-SOA Circus Troupe at UNCA, Nov 12

A GOOD EVENING TO ONE AND ALL!
In behalf of the Traveling Bonfires and UNCA's Students for a Democratic Society, I'd like to invite you to a very significant and urgent show on NOVEMBER 12, SUNDAY, 7pm at UNCA's Alumni Hall. The show is called "WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS" by a touring group called CARDBOARD CHAOS (Uncle Sam's Little Global Circus). This is the Asheville leg of an annual East Coast tour to help shut down the US Army School of the Americas. It features a provocative mix of circus stunts, puppetry, political satire and original music. The show is FREE; donations collected at the show go to Cardboard Chaos' tour
fund.

Meantime, The Bonfires also requests any form of help or donation--little cash or spare change, extra accommodation to our visitors etc--to help us make this event a fulfilling, enjoyable and relevant community effort. You can either email me back or call Marta Osborne at 505 0476 for more info.

In case you want to see us, we will be at Pritchard Park this Saturday, OCT 28, from 4pm to 10pm--for The Bonfires' annual Halloween family dance-concert/gathering, "BONFIRES FOR VAMPIRES: Bonfires for Peace at Pritchard Park, Year 3." Touch Samadhi's family of DJs will be spinning records, and we will be giving out free gifts and goodies to kids. GRACIAS!

--Pasckie Pascua

Bonfires For Peace

Pritchard Park halloween trance party 10/28 - link

Pritchard Park

People watching April 25, 2006, at Pritchard Park in downtown Asheville. (I found this photo at Flickr.)Sometimes there are bands playing, street musicians, jugglers, and on Friday nights a drum circle until 11:00.

Bonfires for Peace

TOUCH Samadhi in Pritchard Park

Saturday April 15, 2006, 3pm to 10pm at Pritchard Park in Downtown Asheville, NC, Featuring members of Touch Samadhi.

Shapestatic
Kri
Oso
Medisin
Blue Spectral Monkey

Other Bonfires for Peace dates: May 6, June 10, July 1, August 5, Sept 2. For more details, email pasckie@yahoo.com or call Marta Osborne at (828) 505 0290.

The Traveling Bonfires roam the country, instigating arts and music events, bringing people together for global peace and multicultural community connected-ness.