"Festival of the Soul" proceeds will help Penny Park in Silver City
Organizers of the Nov. 14-15 "Festival of the Soul" in Silver City plan to donate 50 percent of their proceeds to benefit Penny Park, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year.
"Festival of the Soul" is a two-day family-oriented musicfest which features inspirational, uplifting and exciting "World" music performed by well-known professional bands from across the country as well as the local area. This is the first of what is hoped to be a yearly event and it is the first of its kind to be held in Silver City and all of southern New Mexico, organizers say. It will be held at Penny Park, 1305 N. Grant, in Silver City.
The park in downtown Silver City is a community project built by hundreds of volunteers. The park's first phase, the Penny Playground, was completed in the spring of 1999. The playground is filled with a variety of imaginative climbing structures, castle playhouses, slides, swings, balance beams, bridges, and picnic grounds. Donations of volunteer labor, and materials cut construction costs in half.
In the fall of 1999, volunteers constructed above-ground ramps and other structures for a temporary skate park, which has been used for many years while funds were being raised for the construction of a 20,000 square foot in-ground extreme sports park. In April 2000 volunteers gathered again to build a 310-seat amphitheater and dance floor. Silver City is proud of its community park which helped promote similar, though less elaborate projects in Carlsbad, Las Cruces, and Ruidoso.
In April 2009 the park was damaged when an arson-caused fire burned a large portion of the park. The community was committed to rebuilding the park. Festival of the Soul's donation will help to rebuild.
It takes a lot of volunteers to put on a two-day music festival and more are needed. To volunteer send an email to info@festivalofthesoul.org. For more info go to: www.festivalofthesoul.org.
The World musicfest is a non-profit organization and donations are tax deductible.
