Children’s Health Defense At The African Arts Festival – This Is How We Do It!

For the third year in a row, CHD and CHD New York, have had a booth at the African Arts Festival in New York. This is a very popular festival. It has been going on for 52 years! Tens of thousands of people travel from all over the country and from around the world to be at this annual event.

For 4 days, it features live entertainment on several stages. There's lots of great music including African drummers, reggae, jazz and so much more.  The son of the late great Pharoah Sanders even performed!  There were also lots of dance groups and even fashion shows. In addition, there were plenty of vendors selling all types of delicious ethnic dishes, as well as popular American dishes and even vegetarian meals.

It also had vendors selling clothes, jewelry, artwork, and even those who were giving traditional African foot and back massages. There was something for everyone!

What was most outstanding of all was the very positive energy at this event. Everyone was always very positive and easy to talk to. Everyone was there to have a good time!

We had at the Children’s Health Defense booth, beautiful double-sided color flyers with striking photographs, highlighting key issues that CHD has taken on and the wealth of information we have on our website. 

We also had the digital truck on the streets outside of the festival which attracted a great deal of attention as people viewed the different messages and images that appeared on the sides of the truck. 

The most important element of all was the group of dedicated volunteers who helped distribute the flyers to people over the course of the 4 days. They also got into some lively conversations with the people there.  

Our team of volunteers were the true warriors and heroes, including those who could not make it, but were there in spirit! They traveled from different parts of the city and the state to be at this event to help us get information to the public. They stayed for hours either at the booth or walking around and distributing flyers to people and answering their questions.

To show its appreciation, CHD New York did provide funding so that the volunteers could buy lunch at the festival. Everyone loved the food!

It felt so wonderful to be with a team of conscientious individuals working together for a common goal.  It is this type of positive energy and commitment that lays the foundation for change. This was the same team that helped to defeat the notorious database bill a few weeks ago which threatened to take away medical privacy in New York and ultimately across the country. It was the same team that helped defeat all of the bad vaccine bills over the past four years in New York State!  Our New York team gets things done!

Each year keeps getting better at the African Arts Festival. More and more people at this event recognized the CHD name. A lot of people expressed their gratitude to CHD  for its activities and the wealth of information it has on its website.  Those who were learning about Children’s Health Defense for the first time, were also very appreciative of the flyers as they looked over them.  They saw that we were providing powerful information that they were not hearing from the mainstream media.  Most said that they would definitely share the flyers with others.

Throughout the course of the year, most cities have various festivals, especially during the summer and fall. These festivals represent great opportunities to reach people outside of our networks.  We are doing more of these types of festivals to continue to help raise awareness about a range of critical issues that impact children.

To keep up with what's happening with CHD please visit:

Childrens Health Defense

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/

Children’s Health Defense NYC

https://ny.childrenshealthdefense.org/

Curtis Cost

Children’s Health Defense