On Saturday, with 400 community members and 40 ONE volunteers in attendance, Mayor Joe Sulzer declared Chillicothe a “City of ONE.”

The Chillicothe Urban Crime Prevention Initiative helped to host our first, perhaps of many, ONE CommUNITY day. The event included the support and help of many community partners: City of Chillicothe, Chillicothe Metropolitan Housing Authority, United Way, Chillicothe Fire Department, Ross County’s Sheriff’s Department, Red Cross, NAACP, YMCA, Ross County Community Action and many more.

My partner in comical cavorting Jarrod DePugh and I arrived at the South End Playground for the event at about 11:00am. We packed our J. J. Sunshine’s fliers and portfolios and set up a table in a nice patch of shade.

Things came together about 12:15p.m. and the event kicked off as the first band, Rose Lane Band, took the stage. The crowd grew steadily as the minutes passed happily. Rhythm Stitches were up next and it seemed like the reports of rain would pass us by as the day grew sunnier and warmer. Alas, it would not be so.

Only two songs into their set Zac McFadden and the Speak Easy Band yielded the stage to the day’s ceremony and declarations as Mayor Joe Sulzer and several other prominent officials took the stage to honor the achievements of some of the local youth as well as make the official proclamation to make Chillicothe a “City of ONE”. About halfway through the ceremony, to quote the song, “The sky ripped open and the rain poured through a gaping wound.” And I mean it poured like someone nicked an artery in the sky. But I’ll digress from that for a moment and describe the vibe of the event up to this point.

The vibe of community action and global awareness was palpable as varying secular and inter faith groups came together in the name of unity to inform, educate, and entertain. The ONE presence at this event was impressive ranging from “The Usual Suspects” to many ONE members I had yet to make the acquaintance of. The message of the ONE Campaign was so pervasive that ONE volunteer Nikki Cutright said “I’m having a hard time finding people that don’t know all about it” as she flooded the crowd with fliers.

So halfway through we had to call it a day and pack it in. Not ideal, but a successful day none the less. Perhaps that would have been the end of this tale, but that would be in a world where Davenporte didn’t exist. Dirk, Adam, Johnny, and Kyle came to play a show, and when these boys come to rock they will not be swayed by a little thing like the venue getting shut down. So with an offer from ONE member and owner of The Rockin’ Fish Café, Bev Yoakum, we moved the festivities to her faith-based venue in downtown Chillicothe.

What we ended up with at the Rockin Fish was a group of core ONE volunteers and supporters and the inner circle of Davenporte fans. ONE Chillicothe Grand Pooba Chris Cooper thanked all those involved in the day’s events (especially ONE member Tamra Lowe who was instrumental in making this event a success) and offered a bit of insight and inspiration in the words “We’re not a family because of the way our skin may look, but by the way we love one another.” And with that the boys from Davenporte cranked it up to 11 and rocked the socks off of that room. A great, intimate gathering of friends swaying to the sound was the perfect end to an imperfect but greatly illuminating day. I guess the old cliché adage holds true, Every Cloud.

-Joshua Ray, ONE member, Chillicothe, OH

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 8:47 am and is filed under City of ONE. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.