ELK CITY, W.Va. — As part of its ongoing spark of new growth, the Elk City District in Charleston will host a community-wide block party this Saturday from noon until 6 p.m.
Sponsored by Elk City business owners, organizer Jennifer Graley said the newly-created event is completely free to the public and encourages everyone to come out and have a good time.
“Come out, enjoy the music and look around at the vendors, go to our local businesses, shops around the area, there’s food trucks, and a free kids area, so if you don’t want to come out and spend money, just bring your kids out and enjoy the free kids area that we’re providing,” Graley said.
Graley said the free block party will take place along Tennessee Avenue and will come complete with around 25 local vendors and five different local bands and musical artists, including Minor Swing, Jim Snyder and Friends, Fruit from Strangers, and Charlie Murphy.
She said there will also be a free kids area with inflatables and free face painting.
Graley said the idea to put together this block party came after several business owners in Elk City noticed that while there has been somewhat of a revitalization of area businesses, something was missing as a way to bring in more people and generate more excitement.
She said for the last couple of years, however, the area has seen a definite upswing in local businesses with the integration of Sergio’s Italian cuisine and Albuquerque Southwest Bar and Grill just to name a few.
“We have a Love Selfie place where you can come and take pictures, they have like a whole studio, there’s a new Sage place that’s a hair and beauty salon that’s over there, and we just now recently got a new Wine Down Bar,” Graley said.
She added that this has made their district unique in the sense that is has now become the only area where visitors have access to a distillery, a wine bar, a brewery, and a meatery all one the same block and within walking distance.
Graley said the Elk City District is becoming a destination in and of itself and that’s because of the vision of the community to raise it up to that.
“That’s part of why we did this block party is because we have a lot of local community people that are around that wanted to see things in our area, that want to have stuff, so we decided to come together as business owners to do this to help bring our community together and bring others into the community,” Graley said.
Graley said they plan to have more of these block parties this summer if all goes well with this first one.