Community Lunch + Happy Hours

2017- 2018 (ongoing)

Pioneer Works staff, artists-in-residence, and friends gathter in the garden for lunch and happy hour from May through September. Each event spotlights a local chef or culinary organization.  I developed, fundrasied and oversaw these programs during the spring/summer of 2017 and 2018.   A full list of past lunches from the 2017 and 2018 series are here. 

Lunches started as an informal staff organized event in summer of 2016.  In 2017, I organized a summer lunch series with one chef throughout the summer and promoted the series online and in Red Hook. Over the course of the summer, 45-80 guests attended each lunch.  In late 2017, Pioneer Works community and engagement program was awarded a $300,000 grant by the Cohen Foundation supporting a 3-year plan to sustain and grow audience areas including school, community, and public programs.  With these funds, Community Lunch grew to include a new chef each week and an attendence of 100+ for almost every event in 2018.  In conjunction with our foundation support,  the director of music programming and I piloted Community Happy Hours, a series of free garden performances featuring local Red Hook musicians. 

Program Team: Sheetal Prajapati (series lead), Justin Frye (music lead), Sandy Kassalis (production), and PW event team. Marisa Prefer and Cassie Wagler initiated community lunch among staff in 2016. 

Image from https://pioneerworks.org/series/community-lunch-happy-hour/