Ride/Walk to Leave a Light On—Fun Fundraising for Compassion for Campers and Jail Brakers

Please support the Ride/Walk to Leave a Light On, a fun, easy bicycle ride through the streets of Woodstock, Illinois on Friday June 14.  The event raises funds for organizations serving the community including Compassion for Campers.  To support the event volunteer to ride and gather sponsors and buy color-coded string of lights—a different color for each charity—to decorate bikes or yourselves.  Strings are $9 each and all proceeds go to the corresponding charity. 

The Ride/Walk is an event for all ages over an easy, level route through pleasant neighborhoods beginning and ending on the Square.  To participate  purchase one or more light strings to support the eight organizations benefiting from the event.

Gathering and sales of strings begins on Woodstock Square at 7 pm with an ice cream social and live music.   with the ride beginning after full dark about 8:40.  As riders return to the Square music will continue until 10 pm.  Strings are available for $9 each from the beneficiary organization or $10 split between all of them or at Material Things Artisan Market, a craft and art consignment shop at 103 East Van Buren Street.

Ride to Leave a Light on founder and sponsor Ken West in his Material Things Artisan Market in Woodstock.

The event is sponsored by and is the brainchild and project of Material Things owner Ken West, a tireless supporter of the community and especially of its youth and by Community Connections For Youth which provides arts related experiences to McHenry County youth.

A rider and bike festooned with lights for the Ride.  Each color light string supports a corresponding community organization.  This year Compassion for Campers will be blue.

This event comes at an especially urgent moment for Compassion for Campers, the organization that provides urgently needed gear and supplies for the McHenry County unhoused who sleep outside or in cars and vacant spaces all or most of the month.  The gear is distributed at the Community Empower Shower Event at Willow Crystal Lake at 100 South Main Street in Crystal Lake which is held on the first and third Fridays of each month.  Direct money donations can be made to Tree of Life Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 5603 Bull Valley Road, McHenry, IL 60050 by check with Compassion for Campers on the memo line or donate online here using the drop down menu under  “Give to Unpledged Donations.”

Another Tree of Life ministry, Jail Brakers which provides support individuals and families with incarcerated loved one is another beneficiary.  Direct donations can be made as outlined above.

Other great community assets and organizations that will benefit from the Ride/Walk include:  The Break teen center in Crystal Lake, The Illinois Migrant Council, Live4Lali, Woodstock Pride, and Stairway to Prosperity.

For more information stop by Material Things, call Ken West at 815 954-3483, visit the Facebook event.

 

McHenry County Will Get Its First Juneteenth Celebration

 

The first ever McHenry County celebration of Juneteenth will be held on historic Woodstock Square on Saturday, June 17 from 3 to 5:30 pm.  Juneteenth—Freedom Day is organized by Gloria Van Hof, a McHenry County Board member,  noted Underground Railroad historian, and long-time activist along with other community leaders.

                     Gloria Van Hof, founder and host of Junteenth--Freedom day, McHenry County's first celebration of the event.

Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the date when slaves in Galveston, Texas, who had been cut off from news of the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 when the Union took control of the length of the Mississippi River, first heard that they had been freed from an order read by the Union general who arrived with troops to take control of the port.  It became an annual festival in cities and towns across Texas in the post-Civil War Era.  In this century observations have spread across the United States as a Jubilee Day of liberation.

Major programs are held in Chicago, Lake County, Elgin, Rockford and elsewhere in the region.

The program will feature speakers, musical performances, and readings with food trucks, vendors, and fun family activities on the Square.

Juneteenth—Freedom Day is free and open to the public.

For more information look for the Facebook page at  and a Facebook Event invitation.