Please check back for information about the 2024 Community Dinner.
"Spread the Joy!!" - Mildred "Mama Dip" Council
Mildred Council, aka "Mama Dip," was the creator of this event and our source of inspiration and partner for 21 Community Dinners, celebrating our community's cultural diversity. She is sorely missed by all who knew her, and continues her legacy through her children and grandchildren.
The Twenty-third Annual Mildred Council Community Dinner was held Sunday, April 30, 2023 at 1 PM in the McDougle School Cafetorium, 900 Old Fayetteville Rd. in Chapel Hill. The Community Dinner is a community building event, crossing economic, racial, religious and ethnic barriers and presenting a wealth of wonderful, culturally diverse food and entertainment from our own community. In 2014 The Community Dinner was a winner of a National League of Cities Award for Cultural Diversity.
Mildred Council's family at Mama Dip's Kitchen is responsible for coordinating the menu and, along with the Carolina Inn, provides the Dinner's main courses. We are very pleased that the Council family want to keep their association with this event which was so important to their mother, Mama Dip. In addition, many local restaurants and churches donate side dishes and desserts to complete the feast. This gives attendees the opportunity to taste food from our many community partners who contributed dishes, all in one place.
A large number of the tickets for the dinner are distributed to people who might not otherwise be able to afford to attend. You can feed a family of four with a $22 donation by giving online today! First, create an account on the Orange County website. Then go to the donate page. Under "Select a Fund" in the dropdown menu, scroll down and select "Community Dinner."
Displays in the corridor leading to the Cafetorium offer information from groups partnering with the Dinner, explaining who they are and what they do to make our community a better place.
Orange County Solid Waste coordinates making the event a Zero Waste Community Event (96% composted or recycled). This year we will again participate in the Fork it Over program - OCWM and the PTA Thrift Store have collected hundreds of sets of steel tableware we will borrow for the event and will wash and return it for reuse by other groups.
In addition to financial support and food donations, we are always seeking volunteers to help prepare for the dinner, including advance and day of preparations, so keep us in mind if you have some time you can give us for the next dinner. You will meet some great folks!
Ron Stutts, retired morning show host at 1360 AM and 97.9 FM, "The Hill," is our Emcee. Ron broadcasted for over 40 years at the mic on WCHL. Ron's "The Music in My Head" is published each weekday on the website chapelboro.com. He shares some great tunes, not only on the radio, but on social media as well.
Marlyn Valeiko is our Spanish translator. She is a native of Honduras and a long-time advocate for Latino/Hispanic and immigrant communities. She has been with Orange County Government for ten years, acting as Limited English Proficient (LEP) Specialist to ensure that people who are not fluent in English can access County services. Marlyn's dedication is based on her love of diversity, languages and cultures.
Red Nucleus will be our pre-event entertainment in the corridor.
Paperhand Puppet Intervention is a puppet theater company based out of Saxapahaw, NC. For over fifteen years they have been creating original large-scale puppet extravaganzas complete with giant puppets, masks, shadow puppets, stilt dancing, painted flats, live music and so much more!
Their shows tell stories of the human heart, illuminate myths from around the world, and inspire young and old alike through their unique brand of creative expression. They create extraordinary puppets that entertain, bring joy, instigate wonder, and inspire contemplation about the incredible world around us.
Providing dance music for the Paperhand Puppets will be Red Nucleus, appearing with special guest percussionist, Beverly Botsford.
Red Nucleus Michael Goy (guitar) and David Cooper (bass) have been performing original music since 2013. Their lively and emotional instrumental duets can be found at the intersection of folk, rock, American primitive, and new acoustic music.
Beverly is a legend in music, dance and spoken-word scenes radiating from The Triangle to the Globe. She is a cross-cultural percussionist and educator committed to building bridges of rhythm. Her performances and classes derive from her deep and diverse musical knowledge based in the traditions of Africa, Cuba, Brazil and her native North Carolina.
The purpose of Takiri Folclor Latino is to show the Latin American culture through dance. We dance rythms from Latin America, specially from Colombia, Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Guatemala, including Cumbia, Bambuco, Mapale, Merecumbe, Plena and others. The majority of our dances have the African, European and Indigenous influence. The African influence in the basic rhythm, the European influence in the wording and the dresses, and the Indigenous influence in the melody and the dance.
Takiri Folclor Latino is a family where we share our values through the dance. The ages of our members range from 3 to 67 years old, from different nationalities, including Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Uruguay, United States and France.
MYCO is a pre-college program focused on chamber music and chamber orchestra performance under the mentorship of distinguished professionals. Music-making with MYCO cultivates creativity, empathy, collaboration, discipline, artistry, and most vitally, a love of music - skills and attributes that will serve our young musicians throughout their lives.
MYCO students enjoy a positive, challenging environment with ambitious performance standards. They are regularly coached by high caliber professional musicians from UNC-Chapel Hill, Duke, UNC-Greensboro, East Carolina University and beyond, and also have opportunities to work with guest artists from groups such as the Juilliard Quartet, Enso Quartet, and Horszowski Trio. MYCO's orchestra and smaller chamber groups offer free public performances every semester.
United Voices of Praise (UVoP), under the leadership of Charles Bradshaw, sings and celebrates traditional and contemporary Black gospel music with joy and spirituality that transcends differences among people. The choir began in 1995 as a collaborative effort between United Church of Chapel Hill's gospel choir and the choir of Fisher Memorial United Holy Church of America in Durham, NC. UVoP sings at local churches, community events, and has toured in Europe several times over the years. We are always looking for new members to join our choir family (and we are indeed a multi-racial family that celebrates diversity) – so please reach out if you are interested.
