CALENDAR: May 8 telethon to raise money for homeless 

Staff reports  |  Charlton Singleton, Shovels & Rope, Manny Houston, Lee Barbour, Kanika Moore and other artists will perform May 8 at a telethon to pay for services that benefit people transitioning out of homelessness.  The event will run on a variety of local media outlets.

The Homeless to Hope Benefit Telethon starts at noon May 8 and will operate until 8 p.m. It will raise money to benefit the Homeless to Hope Fund.  Donations from the event, hosted by the Mayor’s Commission on Homelessness and Affordable Housing, will go to the Navigation Center, a resource center for people experiencing homelessness.

The Homeless to Hope Fund began life in 2016 to assist homeless individuals and families throughout Charleston, Summerville, North Charleston and Mount Pleasant.  In 2018, the Homeless to Hope Benefit Concert began as a way to raise support for the foundation every year. While a traditional benefit concert was originally planned for 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the concert to different avenues.

God’s Hot Dog Ministry, a free service that provides warm meals to the homeless, and Hope to Home Furniture Resource, a furniture provider for individuals that have recently secured a place to live, will be honored with the 2020 Homeless to Hope Award.

An estimated 4,172 people are homeless in South Carolina, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness reported in 2019. Over 12,000 students experienced homelessness over the course of the 2017-218 school year.

What to do today:  Art around the world

There’s a whole virtual world out there to find and enjoy.  Some good ones:

• LONDON:  British Museum, which has mummies and lots of treasures;
• LONDON:  Tate Modern, which has lots of neat exhibitions.
• NEW YORK: Metropolitan Museum of Art, with collections of 5,000 years of art.
• NEW YORK: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum with its dazzling displays of modernism.
• More.  You can visit 500 museums across the world online through this Google amalgamation of sites.  

Local attractions:

• Charleston Museum.  “The Charleston Museum and its Historic Houses will have a variety of content, lessons, videos, and virtual tours during this uncertain time.  More online.
• Gibbes Museum.  You can enjoy lots of local art offerings through the website and social media accounts of the Gibbes Museum. AT 10 a.m. on weekdays, the museum posts virtual readings and workshops on Facebook. Find more online.
• Brookgreen Gardens.  The Murrells Inlet gardens have a new set of activities, #BrookgreenAtHome, that you can do, well, from home.  The staff offers materials, directions and examples.  Post to social media with the tag when done.
• Avian Conservation Center.  Access videos and live streaming presentations online to learn about what’s going on at the Center for Birds of Prey. 

Virtual tours:  Bulldog Tours is providing virtual tours of the city of Charleston daily at 2 p.m., according to sister publication Charleston City Paper.  So far, tours have been to Washington Square, Fort Lamar and the old City Jail.  Learn more.

Plugged In To History.  Middleton Place offers this new digital content portal that offers streamed content on living history, heritage breeds, crafts and even past drinks and social practices (appropriately on Friday at 5 p.m.).  More.

Online wellness:  You can also get fit online through virtual fitness classes that offer workouts, meditations and more.  Check out this City Paper post of what area studios are offering.

Online jazz:  Forte Jazz Lounge in downtown Charleston is offering music enthusiasts the chance to watch live shows online through virtual ticketing with suggested donations of $10.  The feed starts about 15 minutes before shows.  When the virus scare is done, all donors will be invited to a big party blowout at the club with the Joe Clarke Big Band.  Learn more.

Aquarium online.  The S.C. Aquarium is expected to offer a daily Nature Challenge, a virtual “Passport to Fun” and a “Moment of Zen” starting this week online.  It also offers daily education classes at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., Monday to Friday, via its virtual network.  Learn more.

• Read here to learn more about the Aquarium’s new Solo Sweep Challenge litter clean-up effort.
• If you have any online events, drop us a line (editor@charlestoncurrents.com) and make sure to put “Online event” in the subject line.  Similarly, if you’ve got cool ideas for stuff to do while in isolation at home, send them our way.