Music, volunteering and the joys of spring

Okay so the title is a little dramatic, what with the joys of spring and all that, but Spring Fair is coming up, nice flowers everywhere, and the air won’t hurt your face anymore. Speaking of nice flowers, my chosen weekend activity (if I did not have to stay on campus to run the Hopkins bouldering competition) would be to go to D.C. for the cherry blossoms.

For those of you who like to go to actual events — I personally was planning on heading to D.C. just to wander around, look at flowers and maybe eat things — there is in fact a Cherry Blossom Festival. It began on March 20 and will continue until April 17. It includes a kite festival, a parade, fireworks, a Japanese street festival and many other events. For those who are of age, there will be a Cherry Blossom Wine and Beer Festival both this weekend on Saturday and on April 9. Their web page in case you were curious calls it “Drink the District,” which is kind of almost clever.

Both of these festivals will get you off campus and hopefully out in some nice spring weather!

This Thursday the Honey Dewdrops will be playing a little closer to home in Metro Gallery. A former traveling band, they’ve settled in Baltimore. They are a husband and wife duo and play folksy or bluegrass/old time music. I meant to see them last year and never did! They’re supposed to be quite good. I believe admission to the show is $10 and you must be 18 to attend.

Next Friday will also be the first Friday of the month, which means the Four Hour Day Lutherie will be having a concert. They are an instrument building shop that also holds events; you can go build your own guitar or banjo or what have you there, which is very cool. Their First Friday concerts are free so if you’re short on cash it’s a great option for you!

The Lutherie is near Morgan State University.

Finally, as many of you know The Book Thing burned down a couple weeks ago. The Book Thing is a community resource that collects and gives away books. Ordinarily you can show up and take whichever books you want at no charge. Now though, they need help.

They’ve been fundraising and asking for volunteers, so one thing you could do with your weekend is head to The Book Thing and help them out! They need people on Saturday and Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. to continue the cleanup. The Book Thing was (and hopefully will be once it has a new location) in Waverly, which is very close to campus. It’s also where the farmer’s market is. You won’t have to travel far to volunteer, and you’ll be helping a very worthy cause. You might also end up with some free things as they have been giving away what they had in the old building. If you can’t donate your time, you can also donate your money to helping them rebuild! There’s a button on their website for it. They also had a fundraiser this past week and may have more coming up, so be on the lookout for those.

No matter what you do with your weekend, make sure you get off campus at least once one of these days — especially now that walking places is no longer unpleasant!