Tag: Church Health

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Hungry Memphis

Craft Food and Wine Festival Returns

Guests sample food and drink at the 2023 Craft Food & Wine Festival. (Credit: Alison Stukenborg)

Foodies (and others) alert: the 5th annual Craft Food and Wine Festival benefiting Church Health is Sunday,  June 23rd.

The annual festival will be held between 3 and 7 p.m. at The Columns at One Commerce Square. More than 20 food-related businesses, including JEM restaurant, Zio Matto Gelato, Biscuits and Jams, and Comeback Coffee, will be featured.

Event organizer Cristina McCarter, owner of Feast & Graze (which also will be included), says the event is special because it “embodies the entire food industry, from the food makers to the chefs.”

According to the news release, “The all-inclusive event showcases local foodpreneurs and chefs who provide handcrafted dishes for hundreds of guests to enjoy. The indoor event is … packed with delicious bites and paired with high-quality tastings of wine, cocktails, and local brews, live music, and entertainment.”

There also will be a VIP Lounge. “Chef Kevin Sullivan of Kitchen Laurel will provide a beautiful grazing table for VIP guests … while they sip exclusive wines and spirits.”

And, according to the release, “Guests will have an opportunity to connect with their local food makers and purchase their favorite food samples.

“VIP will have an all-access pass with early entry at 3 p.m. followed by the general tasting at 4 p.m. Tickets are on sale now. Admission includes a small tasting tray and wine glass.”

Tickets may be purchased at citytastingexperiences.com. The CFWF10 discount code can be used for $10 off the ticket price.

Categories
News The Fly-By

MEMernet: Ja, Wes Health, and a Lost Car

Posted to Twitter by JamesBurns8

Memphis on the internet.

Ja, Ja, Ja

Memphis sports fans shook their collective damn heads over the weekend. Grizzlies star Ja Morant flashed another gun in yet another online post, earning him yet another suspension from the NBA.

Wes Health

Posted to Facebook by Church Health

Church Health hopped on that Wes Anderson trend going around recently. A spot-on and funny Facebook Reel showed a perfectly framed employee getting on an elevator, admiring some art, and walking past, well, all kinds of things in true Anderson movie style.

Lost Car

Posted to Nextdoor by Lauren T.

“Good afternoon all!!” began the exclamation-point-laced Nextdoor post by Lauren T. last week. “This is incredibly embarrassing!!!! I seem to have misplaced my car on Monday [May 5th].”

The post perplexed neighbors, with many saying they could see the car sitting in the neighbor’s driveway.

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We Recommend We Recommend

Pickleball Party at Memphis Hunt & Polo Club

Photo: Ben Hershey | Unsplash

If someone were to ask you what’s the fastest-growing sport in America, what would your answer be? If you answered pickleball, congratulations, you must be a blast at trivia night. And if you think that pickleball involves throwing a pickle across the kitchen table, then you must be a different kind of blast at trivia night.

In all seriousness, if you haven’t heard of the game played with paddles and a perforated ball, you aren’t alone. When Taylor Taylor, founder of PickleMania, first heard of the game, she says, “I laughed. I thought it was the weirdest sounding thing.” Taylor played tennis professionally for 20 years until, after a few knee surgeries, her doctor told her to stop. “I was sort of freaking out. Like, oh gosh, what am I gonna do now? I’ve been doing this since I was 10 years old.”

Fortunately, a friend pushed her to start playing pickleball. Though she was hesitant at first, Taylor says, “I was just hooked from the first day. … Then I started thinking about what I wanted to do for the second half of my life. I have a master’s in clinical social work. I had written my thesis … about teaching life lessons through sport.

“I woke up in the middle of the night thinking, oh my gosh, pickleball is the perfect sport because it’s so easy. The learning curve is very small compared to something like tennis. … I always say, nothing is sore in my body when I play pickleball except for my face because I’ve been smiling the entire time, even when I’m getting my booty kicked.”

Out of this idea came the nonprofit PickleMania, which teaches pickleball to under-resourced kids while implementing a curriculum of social-emotional learning, based on adverse-childhood-experience research. So far, the program has been implemented in three Universal Parenting Places. And, since the pandemic, the organization has painted more than 30 pickleball courts in driveways, and it hopes to work in charter schools during this summer for kids in summer school. The organization also offers pickleball lessons outside of its nonprofit efforts. Basically, “The people who can pay for lessons pay for the people who can’t.”

To raise more money, PickleMania is hosting a pickleball tournament in a round-robin style in partnership with Church Health on March 26th. That Friday, there will be an exhibition and pro-am featuring professional player Kyle Yates. Tickets for one or both of the days can be purchased at picklemania.org/events.

Pickle & Party, Memphis Hunt & Polo Club, 650 S. Shady Grove, Friday, March 25, 5-8 p.m. | Saturday, March 26, 9 a.m.-2 p.m.

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We Recommend We Recommend

This Weekend’s Laurelwood 15K Raises Funds for Local Organizations

CREDIT: BBBSMS

Run the 901 Race Series hosts Laurelwood 15K, its third of four races this year, this Sunday to benefit local organizations Church Health, Wolf River Conservancy, and Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Mid-South (BBBSMS).

BBBSMS has served more than 16,000 young boys and girls, or “littles,” in the Memphis community since 1968, matching them up with “bigs,” or mentors, to serve as positive role models by spending quality time with them at least twice a month.

BBBSMS has nearly reached its $1,000 goal for race day, but Susan George, the program’s executive director, says she hopes they surpass the goal so they can better serve children who have not yet been matched with mentors.

BBBSMS

Youngest volunteer, Ian

“This funding allows us to recruit additional mentors for the kids who we have waiting,” she says. “We currently have 130 kids on our waitlist, and 92 percent of those kids are boys.”

George says it’s important for these children to have mentors to look up to, as most of them are struggling with parents’ incarceration, divorce, or death.

“A lot of the kids have challenges that they don’t know how to work through, and mentors, with the support of our program, are able to help them work through those things,” she says. “That way they can realize their potential and move on to bigger and better things for themselves.”

Anyone who is interested in becoming involved in the race or as a mentor, intern, or volunteer for the program may reach out by visiting msmentor.org or calling 323-5440.

Laurelwood 15K, Laurelwood Shopping Center, 422 S. Grove Park, Sunday, February 16th, 7 a.m., $20-$55.

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News News Blog

Crosstown Gym Opens; Pool, Community Garden to Come

CREDIT: Crosstown Concourse

Crosstown Concourse

Crosstown High’s new gym

A gym at Crosstown Concourse is set to open Friday (today), ahead of the opening of a pool and community garden slated to debut in the coming months.

As the end of Crosstown High School’s inaugural school year nears, its gymnasium opened Friday, Crosstown Concourse announced via Twitter.

The gym, located next to the Crosstown Theater, houses a college-level basketball court that will also be used for volleyball, physical education classes, and practice space for other sports.

Named the Ice Box after the school’s Yeti mascot, the gym is able to hold up to 750 people.

The gym shares locker rooms with the Church Health YMCA pool which is slated to open mid- to late-summer. The new outdoor pool will be accessible to Crosstown students, as well as YMCA members.

LRK

Rendering five-lane swimming pool

Equipped with five lap lanes and a splash area, the pool is designed to be “as multi-functional as possible,” Shauna Bateman, Church Health YMCA’s district executive director, said.

It will be open during the YMCA outdoor pool season from Memorial Day to Labor Day.

Both the pool and gym were constructed by Grinder Taber Grinder and designed by the firm Looney Ricks Kiss, which worked with Crosstown Arts to develop the concept for the entire Crosstown Concourse project.

Also slated to open this spring is the Crosstown Concourse community garden, a project led by Church Health in partnership with Crosstown High, Memphis Garden Club, and Big Green, a national nonprofit that builds learning gardens in low-income schools.

Designed by landscape architect Ritchie Smith, the garden will be located near Crosstown Brewing Co., housing raised beds for Crosstown students to maintain through the school’s partnership with Big Green.

Crosstown Concourse

Community garden located near Crosstown Brewing Co.

In addition to being a learning space, Ann Langston, senior director of strategic partnerships and opportunities at Church Health, said the garden will provide “a place of tranquility” on the campus.

A fountain designed by artist Betsy Damon, as well as six sculptures created by artist Brian Russell which were previously located at Church Health’s former space will also be added to the garden. Langston said each sculpture represents one of the virtues that Church Health tries to builds its culture around.

Langston adds that the garden will serve as a place where Church Health rehab patients can practice walking on different levels and types of ground, as well as a space for yoga and other meditation classes.

Anyone in the community who is interested in gardening is invited to help with planting and maintenance of the garden, Langston said.

This story has been updated from a previous version stating the pool would open on Memorial Day weekend. Church Health officials have since informed the Flyer the pool will open mid- to late- summer due to weather delays.