Taste Williamsburg Greenpoint is an annual food festival and fundraiser to renovate the Firehouse North Brooklyn Community Center. Set up Smorgasburg-style in the East River State Park at N. 6th Street and Wythe Ave., it features live music and more than 40 restaurants and bars from Williamsburg and Greenpoint giving out food and drink “tastes,” aka samples.
Now in its seventh year, Taste WG is seeking volunteers for the event which takes place Sunday, September 18, from 1-5pm. Duties include helping set up and break down, managing crowd control, as well as tasks leading up to the event, such as social media marketing and distributing fliers (old-school).
As tickets for the fundraiser start at $35, by volunteering you not only get free entry but also a free tasting ticket—which includes four tastes and two drinks tickets. And with Brooklyn Star, Maison Premiere, Oddfellows Ice Cream, Brooklyn Winery, Brooklyn Brewery, and more delicious North Brooklyn eateries and drinkeries participating, it’ll make for some seriously delicious tasting and imbibing, while contributing to a good cause. Register to volunteer here.
A little backstory: the Firehouse, located at Engine 212 on 113 Berry St., formerly known as the “Northside Town Hall Community and Cultural Center,” has a long history of activism and community engagement. It first garnered attention back in 1975, when hundreds of residents occupied the building for 16 months to protest it from shuttering, earning it the name “the People’s Firehouse.”
The planned renovations will help the three-story firehouse realize its vision as a cultural and community center. “In the gentrifying community of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, there is currently no space where people of all socioeconomic levels can come together and connect through culture, arts and conversation,” according to the website.
The first floor will house an arts and performance space; the second, offices for activists and community activists from the Neighbors Allied for Good Growth (NAG) and the People’s Firehouse (PFI), and the third floor, a community meeting space open to anyone in the neighborhood who needs it.
To buy tickets for Taste WG, register here.