WINNER OF SIX SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL JOURNALISTS D.C. AWARDS FOR 2022 Don't Miss Our Homeownership Supplement Center Section Celebrating 58 Years - Vol. 58, No. 34 • June 8 - 14, 2023 #WIBLACKMUSICMONTH
Local ASL Interpreters Shine and Sign at Roots Picnic 2023
By Micha Green WI Managing Editor
The first weekend of Black music month kicked off with Roots Picnic in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and while scores of major talents flocked to the “City of Brotherly Love” for the festival, a special group traveled from D.C. to be featured in each performance. As the designated American Sign Language (ASL) point person for Roots Picnic, Billy Sanders, who is from Saint Paul, Minnesota but has lived in the D.C. area for years, carefully curated a group of fellow interpreters from the DMV to provide their services June 3 and 4 at Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park. “A lot of artists actually do not recognize they have a huge deaf audience, who want to come,” Sanders told the Informer in a
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5 Interpreter Billy Sanders, served as the point person for ASL interpreters for Roots Picnic, where he curated a group of interpreters from the DMV area to provide services for the weekend-long musical festival and cultural activations. (Courtesy photo/Roots Picnic 2023-Taylor Hill/Getty)
In DCPS Procurement Scandal, Black-Owned Small Business Weigh In
D.C. Council’s Finalized Budget Full of Last-Minute Plays
By Sam P.K. Collins WI Staff Writer
y Sam P.K. Collins B WI Staff Writer The path to a finalized fiscal year 2024 budget of $19.2 billion included robust discussion about excluded workers, SNAP benefits and funding for violence prevention programs. During the D.C. Council’s May 30 session, D.C. Councilmember Janeese Lewis George (D-Ward 4) successfully introduced an amendment that diverts excess revenue to funding SNAP programs and reestablishing the $20 million in COVID relief funds that D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) took from excluded workers -- a group that includes returning citizens and undocumented D.C. residents. Meanwhile, D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto’s amendment, which the D.C. Council also approved, sets aside $150,000 in funds that had originally been intended for the
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5 Some members of the D.C. Council expressed concerns about Councilmember Trayon White’s (D-Ward 8) amendment to use money allotted for Ward 8 traffic safety projects for construction of recreation centers in Fort Greble Park and on the campus of Bard High School Early College DC. (WI File Photo/ Roy Lewis)
For nearly two decades, Guerilla Arts Ink has dispatched dozens of teaching artists into District public schools to facilitate innovative arts and hip-hop-based enrichment for students in need of specialized programming. In the aftermath of a major contracting snafu however, the well-regarded media, arts, and education consulting agency won’t be able to carry out its mission in collaborating with DC Public Schools (DCPS) and a Baltimore-based nonprofit by the name of Arts 4 Learning -- much to
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the detriment of those teaching artists dependent of economic opportunities of this nature. Throughout much of April and May, Guerilla Arts Ink and The Uncle Devin Show, two local certified-business enterprises (CBEs), had been in discussions with Arts 4 Learning about coming on as subcontractors for a nearly million dollar contract that Arts 4 Learning secured with
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