Up & Coming Weekly

March 19, 2019

Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.

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MARCH 20-27, 2019 UCW 23 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Meetings For details about all meetings and activities, including location where not listed, call Town Clerk Jane Starling at 910-426-4113. • Aquatics Feasibility Committee Wednesday, March 20, 6:30 p.m., Luther Board Room, Town Hall. is meeting will be held for the purpose of exploring potential partnership opportunities for an aquatics center. • Appearance Commission Tuesday, March 26, 6:30 p.m., Hope Mills Parks and Recreation Center. • Festival Committee Monday, April 1, 6 p.m., Town Hall, front conference room. Activities • Operation Medicine Drop Saturday, March 23, 9 a.m.-2 p.m., Hope Mills Fire Department. Drop off outdated or unused prescription medication. • Food Truck Rodeo ursday, April 4, 5-8 p.m., Town Hall rear parking lot. Enjoy music, an assortment of food trucks, bouncy house and games for kids, and presentations by various public service vendors. • Breakfast with the Easter Bunny/Easter egg hunt Saturday, April 6, 8:30 a.m-11 a.m. and 11:15 a.m., Hope Mills Recreation Center. Tickets are $6. Final day to purchase tickets is Monday, April 1. Call 910-426-4109 to reserve your spot. Easter egg hunt follows Breakfast with the Easter Bunny and is free. • Hope Mills Area Kiwanis Club at Sammio's, second Tuesdays at noon and fourth Tuesdays at 6 p.m. For details, call 910-237-1240. Promote yourself Email hopemills@upandcomingweekly.com. CALENDAR Hope Mills News & Views EVENTS Get ready, Hope Mills. The food trucks are coming back. Beginning Thursday, April 4, and continuing through November, the food trucks will be back the first Thursday of each month. The event will again be held in the rear parking lot of Hope Mills Town Hall, 5770 Rockfish Rd. Chancer McLaughlin, develop- ment and planning administrator for the town of Hope Mills, said the setup will be basically the same as last year, with each of the events starting at 5 p.m. and ending at 8 p.m. A live DJ will provide music for the first rodeo. When summer arrives, McLaughlin said the town will offer live bands. There will also be activities for children, including a bouncy house and a variety of free games. In addition, the town will have ven- dors on hand who will share infor- mation with the community about their various services. Among the vendors lined up for the first rodeo in April are the Hope Mills Community Emergency Response Team, iSign sign lan- guage and The CARE Clinic. "The vendors provide a service to the community," McLaughlin said. "We are giving them the ability to share awareness about their pro- gram and the service they offer in the community.'' At all of the food truck rodeos, the town encourages people to bring nonperishable food items to donate to the ALMSHOUSE, a Hope Mills-based nonprofit that focuses on helping families get back on their feet and become self- sufficient, and its Kid's Assistance Program. "We always do the ALMSHOUSE food drive,'' McLaughlin said. Among the scheduled food trucks for the first event are A Catered Affair by Chef Glenn, Big T's Snow on the Go, California Taco Truck, Kona Ice and Nancy Manby's Famous Food Truck. McLaughlin said he strives at each food truck rodeo to have a variety of trucks so that no two trucks are competing directly with each other with the same food or specialty offerings. McLaughlin said the food truck events took a serious hit from bad weather last year as he had to can- cel or postpone the monthly gath- erings four times as two hurricanes hit Hope Mills in the fall. He tries to watch the weather as closely as possible and call them off or reschedule them at least a week in advance if needed. He said the biggest thing he learned from last year's rodeos is that the people of Hope Mills love the food trucks, and the truck own- ers are appreciative. "We charge no fees for food trucks,'' he said. "The main goal is we are trying to sup- port the food truck community.'' He said the people appreciate the events because it gives them a break from preparing meals at home on a week night. "It's a relaxing event for a school night,'' McLaughlin said. "We provide the tables and chairs, and the music is a backdrop.'' McLaughlin said he gets his list of food trucks from the trucks that have been approved by the county health department. "I switch the trucks out every month, and we book about a month in advance,'' he said. "We try to make sure we have at least six trucks for a variety.'' McLaughlin can be reached at 919-478-9023 or cmclaughlin@townofhopemills.com with questions about the rodeos or how to get a food truck involved. The food trucks will be in town the first Thursday of each month starting in April. Photo by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash Food trucks return to Hope Mills in April by EARL VAUGHAN JR.

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