Brodie’s Cream & Bean to host ‘Concerts on the Lawn’

By John Underwood / john@gulfcoastmedia.com
Posted 3/9/18

SILVERHILL, Alabama — Brodie’s Cream & Bean will host the first of a series of six “Concerts on the Lawn” beginning at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 10 at the local charity organization at …

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Brodie’s Cream & Bean to host ‘Concerts on the Lawn’

Concerts on the Lawn series starts Saturday in the courtyard at Brodie's Cream & Bean in Silverhill.
Concerts on the Lawn series starts Saturday in the courtyard at Brodie's Cream & Bean in Silverhill.
JOHN UNDERWOOD / STAFF PHOTO
Posted

SILVERHILL, Alabama — Brodie’s Cream & Bean will host the first of a series of six “Concerts on the Lawn” beginning at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 10 at the local charity organization at 15823 Alabama 104 in Silverhill.

“Our goal is three-fold,” said owner Lisa Brodie. “We wanted to raise awareness for Maji : Hope and give us an opportunity to let folks know what we’re about; we wanted to raise money to continue our mission; and we wanted to do something that will bring the community together.”

Brodie’s Cream & Bean ice cream shop opened in May of last year, a fundraising arm of Maji : Hope, a local charity organization which provides clean drinking water to villages in Africa (maji means water in Swahili).

Maji : Hope was born out of a dream Lisa Brodie had of going to Africa when she was a little girl. After talking to doctors while on a mission trip in 2007, she and her husband Curtis decided to form the charity.

The two local educators started a penny drive, which grew from there, selling T-shirts, hats, mugs and other items to raise money, Brodie said, the idea of selling goods made by local villagers actually came from the villagers themselves.

Eventually a group of mothers from the Endevesi village calling themselves the Imani Group (imani means faith in Swahili) approached the organization about doing something to help raise money for the water project in their village, Brodie said.

“They offered hand-made items that could be used as jewelry, Christmas ornaments, things like that,” she said. The items were collected and sold for $10 each.

“For years, we were offering the items for sale from our homes, but it just got to be too much,” Brodie said.

So they began looking for a place they could call home in order to sell the items and after an exhaustive search, found a place on the corner of Highway 104 and Ninth Avenue, across from The Station in Silverhill.

The Brodie’s opened The Cream & Bean on Memorial Day weekend last year and Lisa Brodie said from the beginning, they wanted to do an event to showcase artists and bring the community together.

“We thought of doing it all at once,” she said, “but we decided that since everyone has such a hectic schedule, by doing six different concerts, it will give more people a chance to attend.”

Only one of the concerts features a local artist, Fairhope native Summerlyn Powers, who will perform April 28, a singer, songwriter and musician who got her start playing the local festival circuit.

Two others have local ties, Lee Black, (April 6) former music director for the Church on the Eastern Shore (now known as 3 Circle Church), who took his talents to Nashville and is now a Dove Award winning artist; and Tim Simmons (June 1), who served as a pastor locally before moving his ministry to South Haven, Mississippi.

The opening concert on March 10 will feature Mississippi-born sibling trio Daves Highway, followed by Lee Black on April 6, then More Than This, a contemporary Christian band from Gadsden, performing on April 13.

Summerlyn Powers will perform on April 28, followed by Tim Simmons on June 1, then the final concert will feature Benjamin Butler, a Southern Americana artist from Nashville, best known as part of the trio “The Walking Guys” Nashville artists who set out on a 1,600-mile walking tour to play shows in more than 50 cities across the United States.

As for Maji : Hope, Brodie says the organization is going strong, currently focused on seven different projects to bring water to African villages, including six new projects and one continuing project.

You can learn more at majihope.org.