Big Heart Trivia! Free Trivia Night at Wigle Whiskey

Most Monday nights, Wigle Whiskey hosts Batnam Nights, where they open their tasting room to a different Pittsburgh area non-profit and donate a portion of the proceeds to the organization.  This Monday night the Batnam night will be a Valentine’s trivia night to benefit a local historic preservation effort.

On Monday, February 13, 2017, Friends of Albright is hosting a special trivia night at Wigle Whiskey in the strip district – Big Heart Trivia.  Friends of Albright, which I helped to establish in 2014, is a group of community members that has been working to preserve and re-purpose the Albright Church Building in Bloomfield into a community space.

The trivia night is named after a note card found in the church archives, this evening will offer a chance to learn more about the effort to save the Albright United Methodist church and a chance to meet some of the folks who are involved with Pittsburgh historic preservation.

Trivia night will be hosted by Dave Mansueto who runs the popular weekly quiz night at Brillobox each Wednesday.

The event is free to attend, drinks will be available for purchase and there will be food provided.

Learn more about the history of this 110 year old church and study up for the trivia by reading the East Liberty Valley Historic Society’s article Albright United Methodist Church building here.

Big Heart Trivia at Wigle Whiskey

DATE: Monday, February 13, 2017

TIME: 6-9pm

  • 6pm – doors open, grab a drink
  • 7pm – trivia starts

COST: FREE
RSVP: here. Invite your friends on Facebook here.

Looking for more historic preservation events in Pittsburgh?

Be sure to join the Pittsburgh Historic Preservation MeetUp group and the Pittsburgh Historic Preservation Facebook group.

Save the date! March 23 is the Saving Sacred Spaces Summit at the Priory Hotel. The Young Preservationist Association is teaming up with the national non-profit Partners for Sacred Spaces for a deeper look at how to preserve and reuse religious structures.

 

Redhawk Coffee Now Open in Oakland

For a neighborhood that is home to a population of guaranteed coffee drinkers, Oakland has 3 universities and a handful of hospitals, there has been a lack of coffee shops especially since the Pete’s Coffee closed a few years ago.

Redhawk Coffee which launched a coffee truck last year now has a storefront at 120 Meyran in Oakland. Thank you for Natrona Bottling for sharing this snapshot on Instagram.  The shop opened in January and is just a popup location through March. You can read more about Redhawk coffee’s Oakland location in the Pitt News here.

Follow Redhawk coffe online:

A word from our sponsors…

Lyft is hiring more drivers in Pittsburgh (Lyft is also looking for drivers in Youngstown, OH & Morgantown, WV) – apply online here and get upto $150 new driver bonus. 

An Update on the Three Rivers Postcard Club

When I first started blogging, I set up a google calendar to keep track of and share Pittsburgh events. In 2008 we wrote a post about the Three Rivers Postcard Club and I added a recurring event for their monthly meetings to the calendar. While the IheartPGH Google calendar has not been updated in years, each month I still get a reminder for the monthly meeting of the Three Rivers Postcard Club. And each month I’ve wondered if the club still exists.

As much as I love social media and I love looking at and sharing photos of Pittsburgh, I still love postcards. In many ways, postcards were the original Instagram or Facebook post. A quick photo and a short message to send someone an update. I love sending them and I love browsing through stacks of old postcards when I visit a flea market or Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse (which is an excellent source for both new and used postcards and greeting cards). Who doesn’t like getting a piece of mail that isn’t a bill or a solicitation from Comcast.

Last week, Diana Nelson-Jones published a lovely article about the Three Rivers Postcard club – Diana Nelson Jones’ Walkabout: Recalling postcards: underrated sources of folk history (Post-Gazette, January 9, 2017).  The postcard club still exists and still meets at the same time and place as they did in 2008, 7 p.m. every third Thursday at the Fairhaven United Methodist Church, 2415 Saw Mill Run Blvd., in Overbrook.

 

Pittsburgh Postcards then and now…

Would anyone be interested in helping to recreate some old postcard photos and share what those places look like now? I think it would be interesting to see what some of these places look like now and if they even still exist. The Fort Pitt Hotel, pictured above, was built in 1905 and demolished in 1967. You can read more about the Fort Pitt Hotel here.

 

A word from our sponsors…

Skip the cost and headache of parking downtown and grab a Lyft. Use code IHEARTPGH to get $10 off your first ride. Click here for more info.

Make a Loan to Help a Pittsburgh Business Owner Restore a Historic Building

Since election day, I have been thinking about best ways to support a sense of community, especially locally community right here in Pittsburgh. I wrote a blog post the week after election day with ways to support local community, number 1 on the list was shop local. I would like to update that list to include lend local and I think that Kiva loans are one of the best ways to support small businesses by investing and reinvesting funds in local communities. Kiva.org started as a platform to make loans to business owners in developing countries. A few years ago Kiva expanded their platform to allow loans to small businesses in the US.  Over the past 2 years, I have made loans to support 8 local businesses.

Screenshot 2016-12-18 at 11.15.04 PMI have just made a loan to Cut N’Run Studios, which is a video production company that needs funds to restore a historic building.  This loan is being supported by the Pittsburgh Metropolitan Area Hispanic Chamber of Commerce (PMAHCC). The $10,000 will be repaid monthly over 36 months.

A loan of $10,000 helps me restore a historic landmark that I will use to house my video production business.

Cut N’Run Studios is currently funding a loan on Kiva and has 3 more days to get $4700 in commitments.

Five reasons why I think you should join me in lending to Cut N’Studios:

  1. Loan not a grant – this is a loan, funds will be repaid to the borrowers on a monthly basis and can be reinvested in other businesses. (See below for more on how Kiva works)
  2. Beechview – support a small business in Beechview, one of Pittsburgh’s neighborhood that has been working to rebuild the business district.
  3. Historic Preservation – support the renovation of a historic movie theater building
  4. Building Ownership – Support a local business which owns their building. Jordan started his business in an attic and has expanded to the point where he was able to purchase his own building.
  5. Immigrant Owned Business – Jordan is originally from Venezuela, but now calls Pittsburgh home, this loan is just one little way you can show support for immigrant owned businesses in Pittsburgh.

You can read more about Cut N’Run Studios and help to fund Jordan’s Kiva loan here.

How Kiva loans work:

  1. Borrower’s loan is sponsored by a local Trustee
  2. Lenders make a donation to Kiva, donations are tax deductible and choose which loans to fund
  3. Borrowers get a zero interest loan
  4. The borrower repays the loan in increments, usually monthly
  5. Lenders can then re-lend the funds to another loan

If you are interested in learning more about Kiva’s work in Pittsburgh, join the Kiva Pittsburgh Facebook group here.

Join Our Pittsburgh Kiva Team!

One of the features that I really like about Kiva is the statistics. I can see all kinds of information about how much I’ve lent, relent, what has been repaid and more. Kiva has feature called teams where groups can contribute together and see their collective impact. If you are interested in supporting Pittsburgh based loans, I hope you will join the IheartPGH Kiva Team here.

It is my goal to have 100 people join this team and make a loan of $25.  I look forward to seeing what impact $2500 can have on supporting local businesses.

Two other Pittsburgh area Kiva loans to check out:

  • Dance And Be Fit – A loan of $4,000 helps us produce high quality videos so that Dance and Be Fit can help more people lose weight and have fun through soul line dancing.
  • TC Candy & Chocolate Art – A loan of $5,025 helps to finish the renovations to our new TC Candy retail location.

Historic Preservation Kiva Team

I have just created a new Kiva Team for lenders who are interested in supporting loans specific to historic preservation projects.  If you are interested in historic preservation, please join the Historic Preservation Kiva team here.

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Learn more about Pittsburgh’s connections to Cuba at the CubaOne Fundraiser

Apologies for the last minute posting on this event for CubaOne, which is tonight, Monday, December 12, 2016.  Even if you can’t make it to this event, I wanted to share some information with Pittsburgh readers about the CubaOne Foundation.

One of the founders of the CubaOne Foundation is Daniel Jimenez. I met Daniel through PUMP many years ago, I think we were both board members at the same time. Daniel and I have stayed in touch via Facebook. I struggle, like many others, with how much is too much Facebook, but it is following things like the launch of the CubaOne Foundation that make checking Facebook worth it.

CubaOne Foundation Vision

Through direct engagement and open dialogue, we can build bridges of cooperation, understanding, and unity among all people of Cuban heritage, regardless of where they may live. Our trips are designed to facilitate interactions among a new generation of Cubans—both on the island and in the United States—where people can naturally pursue their passions, dreams, and work together toward a brighter tomorrow. We want Cuban Americans to visit Cuba, experience it, talk about it, and think about what an emerging Cuba means for them and their communities in the U.S.

It has been a delight to follow the birth of the CubaOne Foundation through Daniel’s Facebook posts.  Thanks to Facebook, I’ve been able to see this project go from idea, to name, to trips to Cuba, to coverage of CubaOne in the New York Times. While Daniel is not currently a resident of Pittsburgh, I think it is a testament to his connections to Pittsburgh that he has organized an event for the CubaOne Foundation here.

I am excited about the work that the CubaOne Foundation is doing to create a dialogue about the Cuban American experience and cultural heritage through trips and conversations. I know first hand how important it is to go and see other communities. In 2013, thanks to the generous support of the readers of IheartPGH, I had the opportunity to participate in the Millennial Trains Project.  This cross-country train trip provided me with the opportunity to visit community spaces and connect with other young leaders from around the country and the globe. Daniel was one of the supporters of my trip and it is an honor to share his project with the IheartPGH community.  (You can read a recap of the trip here: Five Things I Brought Back to Pittsburgh From My Cross Country Train Trip.)  You can read articles and watch documentaries. But to go and experience a place and bring those stories back to share with others is a key part of creating a shared cultural understand.

cubaone-daniel

tucuba

Article from Tu Cuba participant in USA Today

The event tonight will feature speakers from Pittsburgh who have had the chance to visit Cuba – including Island Jim, owner of Leaf & Bean in the Strip District and Joanna Huss of Huss Group.

Details for tonight’s event are below. If you can’t make the event, be sure to follow CubaOne on Facebook, Twitter @CubaOneTweets & Instagram for updates and beautiful photography from their trips.

A Free Trip to Cuba?

Know of a young Cuban Americans (ages 22-35)? Encourage them to apply for Tu Cuba, a free trip to Cuba with the CubaOne Foundation. The application is pretty simple and there are several trips each year.

EVENT // Monday, December 12, 2016: CubaOne: Bridges to Pittsburgh

Please join CubaOne Foundation, for a timely discussion on the new Cuba and an evening celebrating Cuban heritage and culture in support of the organization.

Speakers:

  • Daniel Jimenez, Founder + CEO CubaOne Foundation, Pitt + CMU alum
  • Island Jim, Owner Leaf and Bean, recently returned from a trip to Cuba’s tobacco fields
  • Joanna Huss, Huss Group, Cuban American, recently visited Cuba for the first time

Host Committee:

  • Congressman Mike Doyle
  • Saleem Ghubril, Pittsburgh Promise Executive Director
  • Becca Burns
  • Nila Devanath
  • Kylie LaSota
  • Jordan Pallitto
  • Kris Rust

Wigle Whiskey, 2401 Smallman Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15222

  • 5.30-6.30pm Cocktail Hour
  • 6.30-7.30pm Panel Discussion
  • 7.30-8.30pm Mixer

For tickets: https://bridgestopittsburgh.eventbrite.com/

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