This summer at RE-create, barbeques have been a big theme. For the past few years, we have been blessed to partner with Eric and the Turkstra Lumber team on Upper Wellington for their charity barbeque program. On select Fridays throughout the summer, RE-create staff go up the mountain to cook hot dogs and hamburgers to raise money for the studio. The food is sold in the Turkstra Lumber parking lot to customers and staff, as well as anyone who sees the large sign on the street.

Turkstra Lumber and its partners generously donate all the food and supplies, while letting RE-create keep the proceeds of these events. Each summer this extra income facilitates a little something extra at RE-create. This year the proceeds were used to help out with a research project RE-create has doing on youth resilience. It’s been a joy to be on the receiving end of Turkstra Lumber’s generosity year after year, and we are thankful for their continued support!

RE-create youth also had the opportunity to partake in a barbeque this summer. In 2014 we had our first Hot Dog Tie Dye Barbeque, an idea cooked up by one of our youth artists. We applied for a “Summer Fun” grant from the Laidlaw Foundation that year and received the funds necessary to have a celebration that included a live DJ, an opportunity for each youth to tie-dye a t-shirt, and lots of yummy hot dogs and treats.

This year’s celebration was just as exciting. We moved the party to Beasley Park, which let us add Frisbee fun and some wild bocce games to the event. Many youth showed up for the celebration, getting creative with the colourful dyes, eating hot dogs, and listening to DJ Brett Klassen spin some tunes. We dodged rain storms the whole time, but ended up avoiding a major downpour during the festivities.

We were grateful to have donations of gift cards from both Giant Tiger and Food Basics for the event, which helped us provide the food for the youth. We also couldn’t have made it all happen without the help of our dedicated volunteer team! One of our volunteers even created an amazing photo booth where youth could get their photo taken with friends against an iridescent, artistic backdrop. Watch for those photos on our RE-create Facebook page sometime soon!

There’s also an opportunity for you to join in on another fun upcoming event at RE-create! On Friday, September 23^rd 2016 RE-create is hosting our second annual “Battle of the Brushes” fundraiser at The Spice Factory. The event will feature local artists battling each other by creating works of art in 30 minutes that the audience then votes on. Only the top artists travel on to the next round, until three are crowned the winners. It’s always a high-energy event, full of creativity and fun, and we’d love to see you there! Check out Shalem’s Facebook page for the poster and Facebook event for this fundraiser.

Meghan Schuurman is the Studio Coordinator for REcreate Outreach Art Studio.