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Somerfun

SomerFun: A Romp for Independents was Somerville Local First’s first year street festival. With over 50 participating organizations from Local Retailers and Artisans to Farmers, Nonprofits and Artists. SomerFun had something for everyone!  Now if we only had good weather!

A neighborhood wide scavenger hunt, and large interatctive installation (“Carousel”) from SLF Artist Autumn Ahn & SLF Member Chorus Collective, a collective of artists based in Union Square.

Green City Growers provided canning demonstrations and we had and multi-cultural youth group dance and music.

And of course, appearances by WBUR/NPR’s own Robin Young and Mayor Joe Curtatone helped keep the festivites rolling.

Check out some photos taken by our good friends at Supertonic, and stay tuned for updates on Year 2.

Local Somerville Businesses Support SLF - Amazing SomerFun Video by Paper Fortress

Somerville Somerfun 2010 Event from Paper Fortress on Vimeo.  The speech ends and music begins at about :45.  Music by Josh Lederman & The CSARs

by Joe Grafton

SomerFun did not quite work out how we had hoped and planned (note to organization:  outdoor events are affected greatly by rain), and set SLF back financially for a bit.  But we pulled together and persevered that day.  We learned a lot and we still managed to create a great experience for those who braved the showers.

As I wrote about in a post about the Street Attack video series earlier this week, one way in which we are blessed is the support of the creative community.  As I watched this video, I saw images of so many supporters.  I saw business owners, artists, nonprofits and community members all enjoying being together and doing so out in the community.  I saw people supporting SLF and each other.  Which brings us to Paper Fortress and Stebbs Schinnerer.

Stebbs is a pretty big deal, I think.  He went on tour with Johnny Cupcakes, renowned T-shirt artist.  He’s created stunning videos about Union Foundry, a Recover Green Roof & Green City Growers collaboration building a garden on top of a restaurant and documented the Floods in Union Square.  It’s painfully obvious from watching any of his videos that the boy’s got talent.

And so as we were planning SomerFun, Stebbs and I started a conversation about documenting our event through his firm, Paper Fortress.  As the financial outlook started to worsen, I told him we probably couldn’t afford his work.  He told me:  ”Don’t worry about it, we’ll figure it out“.  And when the final numbers came in, our video budget went from little to nothing (or negative?).  But Stebbs didn’t seem to care.

He believes in what SLF is doing and, more importantly, cares about Union Square and his community.

Yesterday, whhen he sent me the link to the video via Gchat, I let loose with the gratitude and appreciation.  His response?

no worries man, seriously. i appreciate it but i want to help build the community around here, and if it means helping out with a little video here and there its no biggie at all

And that’s how independent business owners roll.  And it keeps us (and me) going through any of the tough times, and  makes it all worth it.

Thanks Stebbs!!!

PS~

Thanks also to local recording studio professional (and SLF Artist) Damon Leibert and Josh Lederman & The CSARs both from in and around the ‘ville, for providing the incredibly appropriate track “Pretty Betty”.  They play a monthly at SLF Member Precinct in, you guessed it, Union Square.

Originally posted on...July 23rd, 2010
1 comment

The Relaunch of the Somerville Local First Website - A resource to find Locally Owned and Independent Businesses in Somerville

Welcome to the new SLF website!  We’re excited to completely relaunch our web presence in an effort to better promote the local movement and our members. At the same time, we hope to engage in meaningful dialogue with you, our fellow community members.

This site is intended to serve as a community resource: a place for learning and discussion.  To help you continue  to Shift your Shopping to local and independent businesses, we are incorporating a number of new features:

  • The SLF Blog – Our new blog based site will feature wide ranging contributions every week from many different sources, including:
    • SLF Staff, Interns and Board of Directors
    • SLF Members – entrepreneurs, artists and nonprofit directors
    • Community Bloggers – community members who are passionate about ‘local’ and want to share their Somerville stories
    • National Experts – people around the country who are working to build strong local living economies
    • Multimedia galore!  - We’ll be posting photos, reviews, videos and more to the site in the coming months.  We hope these tools will continue to build the awareness and behavior change we need to take our movement to the next level.
    • Campaign and Event pages – We’ll have living pages dedicated to the 10% Shift, Shift your Shopping, Move Your Money, Harvest Fest and SomerFun, which will be updated throughout the year.
    • Tweets from around the ‘ville – A live-updating tweet list of SLF members and SLF partners
    • A more active and engaging set of content about the Local Movement, here in Somerville and beyond
    • Shift & Save coupons!  - Want to buy local?  Want to save money?  Then buy Shift & Save coupons from the SLF website.  These coupons get you great deals from our members and help provide much needed capital to the SLF organization.  COMING SOON!
    • Real time, location based mobile coupons on your smartphone!  - SLF has partnered to pilot a location based coupon system for iPhone and Android users.  Simply come to our home page, click on the Mobile App widget from anywhere in Somerville, and see offers from our members in real time.  COMING SOON!
    • An easy way to JOIN SLF – We now have membership categories for businesses, artists, nonprofits and community members.  Each community can easily join our growing network and become part of the movement to build and sustain our local economy in Somerville.

This is just the first step to developing a community resource for local economies like no other.  We want to know what you think…in fact, one of the main reasons why we chose this format was to create and foster dialogue.  So if there’s something you’d like to see, something you like (or don’t like), please let us know.

Stay tuned this week for daily blog posts, including the beginning of a video series on SLF developed by Street Attack. We will also be hearing from our first Community Bloggers and providing more details on our Shift & Save coupons and mobile applications!

Shift Happens

~jG

Originally posted on...July 19th, 2010
2 comments

Photos from SomerFun 2010

Here are a few great photos from our talented friends at Supertonic.

Mayor Joe Talks at SomerFun

Groundwork Somerville's great map game for the kids

People were loving the dunk tank

Everyone's favorite local chocolate company, Taza Chocolate

Shiny Things for your nest with Magpie

Local Ice Cream from JP Licks

A BIG thank you to event sponsor The Independent

SomerFun water bottles, made in the USA, bought in Somerville and BPA free

Local delights for the canning demonstration by Green City Growers

Originally posted on...July 18th, 2010
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developed with a whole lotta local love by trulygood