How free East End Festival helps Richmond students

RICHMOND, Va. -- The East End Music Festival is back after a one-year hiatus, returning to Chimborazo Park on Saturday, Sept. 21 from noon to 9 p.m. The free festival celebrates the artists and musicians who hail from the city and raises money for arts and music education for Richmond Public Schools students.

During the five previous East End Festivals, organizers said they raised more than $458,000 for arts and music education projects. The schools include Chimborazo Elementary, Woodville Elementary, Fairfield Elementary, Henry L. Marsh Elementary, Bellevue Elementary, Overby-Sheppard Elementary, Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School, Armstrong High School, and Franklin Military Academy.

The goal for 2024 is to raise more than $300,000.

Previously, funds raised by the festival have been used by the RPS Education Foundation to buy and repair instruments, create a dance studio at Armstrong High School, purchase new pianos, and buy choral risers, concert attire and visual art supplies such as pottery kilns in east end schools, organizers said.

“The instruments, the art materials, the kilns that we are able to provide our students is absolutely life-changing," RPS Superintendent Jason Kamras said. "If we just listen to our students, however they express their voices, there’s nothing we can’t do in the City of Richmond.”

"We have students who have benefited from this program that are music teachers, who are conductors, who are conductors of symphonies, who own their own businesses," said Cheryl Burke, Richmond School Board Chair who was one of the festival's founders.

"Normally, a kid growing up in a home that makes no more than $30,000 per year, you would never be able to access an instrument, but we’re saying we’re going to come together as a collective, as a community, to not only celebrate the artists we have in the city but ensure we have a long line of artists," said Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney.

The Richmond Symphony, the Celebration Male Chorus, and the Dap Mallory Band are all scheduled to perform. A full schedule will be released soon on their website .

Organizers said local musicians and vendors can still apply to take part in the festival. The deadline for musicians to apply is Aug. 1 . The deadline for vendor applications is Aug. 23 .

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