By Michael Riley, Local Journalism Initiative reporter

After having had to be rescheduled due to inclement weather, the North Hastings Community Cupboard's Summer Music
Kitchen Party raised approximately $700 on Aug. 4. The event, organized by Stephen Petrick, a journalist/educator/community
volunteer and NHCC board member, was an open mic style event from 6 to 8 p.m., where local musicians helped raise money
and donations of food for the charitable non-profit. For more information, contact Petrick at stevenpetrick@hotmail.com or at
613-967-9492. Petrick comments to The Bancroft Times on the money raised for the Cupboard by this event.
The NHCC has been serving the region as a registered and licensed food bank since 1992, and they belong to Feed Ontario,
Food Banks Canada, and are a Good Food Organization under the Community Food Centres Canada. They are a registered
charity and own their own building, allowing more funds to be diverted directly to their services. They also established
Bancroft's first community gardens, now located at their 2 Madawaska Street address. For more information, go to
www.northhastingscommunitycupboard.com, or email Executive Director Marlene Bell at nhcc.executivedirector@gmail.com.
While this type of event was something that the NHCC board had been talking about for a while, their former executive
director and current board member Monica Piercey says that they started the concert series back in 2019 but COVID-19 cut it
abortively short. She said that musicians from around the area came out to support it and they had a lot of fun, with them
performing on the NHCC's front porch. She said that Dave Hamm, a previous board member who is now deceased, also
provided a lot of support with the sound system, helping fill the roster with performers and performing himself.
“This was an excellent public awareness event and helped us to bring a positive vibe and good public awareness to an
otherwise challenging topic. We wanted the food bank to be a welcoming place and our front porch was definitely that. We
gathered food and monetary donations and shared food too. Now needs are higher than ever and we are having a hard time
keeping up the pace, let alone have enough funds to keep operations going. We are stalled in our very important kitchen reno
and we really need to get this finished so we can offer more programs to our community that are needed. The space our food
bank and meal program are operating from are really tight and cause significant challenge to our ability to provide adequate
food service, putting our most vulnerable at risk,” she says.
The Summer Music Kitchen Party isn't Petrick's first “kick at the can'” when it comes to doing a fundraiser, as he did a
successful event to raise money for United Way HPE called United by Music a couple of years ago at the Bancroft Village
Playhouse. The coverage for that event is in our sister paper Bancroft This Week in the Jan. 3, 2024 edition. While he says it
was a lot of work, he enjoys it and enjoys using music to support the local music industry and to raise money for worthwhile
causes.
Petrick told The Bancroft Times that they're actually doing a similar event on Aug. 29 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Details for that
are available on their Facebook page.
“In terms of favourite moments, the show started off with a young local musician, Gioia Guerriero. She did great and she's got
a really powerful voice and it was a great way to start off the night,” he says.
Guerriero told The Bancroft Times that she thought the event went quite well.
“It was a lot of fun to play at. I think the event went well overall as well,” she says.
Petrick said that they then had The Rebel Blossoms perform.
“They're a well-known local band, so it was great to have them, too. The audience really enjoyed their music. One of their
members is a past board member, so they really understood the importance of the event. We also had Craig McEachern
perform. He did some well-known favourites, like The Tragically Hip's ‘Bobcaygeon.' And we had a surprise guest, Eric
Epstein, a Vancouver performer who's in town as an actor with The Village Playhouse's production of ‘Fiddler on the Roof'
came by and asked to play a few songs, so of course we let him and that was great. So, I guess we can say the Summer Music
Kitchen Party had performers from across Canada. So given that this was a first-time event, and I certainly didn't know what
to expect, but we were really pleased. The event was what I had hoped for; a pleasant summer evening of music with guests in
lawn chairs around our parking lot. It was cool how a lot of people just heard the music echoing through the neighbourhood
and came down to listen and buy food from the barbecue. This next event we're doing has been in the planning for a while, and
we thought we'd again have music to complement it. I think if we can have a good turnout on a July week night, we can have
even better on a Saturday afternoon. So we'll see what happens. But again, we're really impressed how our community
continues to support us.”