The Orlando-based, all-female benefit concert has announced the show will go on as the festival continues online during COVID-19 pandemic, and will include the release of new music by Beth Mckee. The 2020 event will support women in the arts, while addressing a tremendous and growing community need for food through awareness and fundraising for Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida.
To observe safe social distancing, 2020’s Swamp Sistas La La is going online. On Saturday May 16, the Swamp Sistas La La Hope From Home: Virtual Brunch and Festival will be held via Facebook Live from 11:00 a.m to 7:00 p.m. In keeping with pre-quarantine plans for a brunch event, the Swamp Sistas have teamed up with Winter Park restaurant and music venue, The New Standard to create and serve locally sourced special brunch and dinner menus viewers can order as delivery or pick-up. “La La” is a classic Louisiana Creole house party where musicians gather, friends dance, share food and drink, and everyone chips in what they can for community cause. The tradition dates back to the 1920s. Brunch and Dinner menu, mimosas, bottles of wine and beer and mixed cocktails available for pick-up or delivery from The New Standard in Winter Park.
Founded in 2010 by recording artist, musician, and activist Beth McKee, Swamp Sistas is a coalition of more than 2,700 women with a passion for music and helping out. All that female energy culminates on the day of the big Swamp Sistas La La, “a day long festival featuring female talent in music, comedy, spoken word and visual art.”
Previous Orlando La Las have been held at Park Ave. CD’s, East End Market, and since 2015, on the Loch Haven Park lawn as part of the annual Orlando International Fringe Theater Festival. “With the COVID-19 outbreak, the 2020 Orlando Fringe Festival was cancelled, but the need to help feed our community’s hungry is greater than ever, so we’re offering the 2020 La La as a streaming event, from our Facebook page and some of our 2020 partners’ Facebook pages,” Mckee said.
The 2020 La La lineup will feature a combination of live streams and pre-recorded videos from musical artists such as Hannah Harber; Terri Binion; E-Turn; Cat Ridgeway; Rachel Decker; Shema Shine; Beth McKee herself; and more. The 2020 La La will feature comedy, spoken word and visual art, all presented virtually.
Hope, with the 2020 La La as in years’ past, refers to the Swamp Sistas La La Summer Hope annual fund drive, part of Second Harvest Food Bank’s “Summer Hope” initiative. Each summer, Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida feeds hungry children in need, when no school means no school provided breakfast or lunch. Swamp Sista La La events to date have generated a combined half a million meals for children in Central Florida. This summer, the need is greater than ever, and many talented female artists have stepped up to assist through their art. La La performers are foregoing direct virtual tips to drive all fundraising efforts to Second Harvest Food Bank. Artists will be paid for their performances though, which executes the Swamp Sistas bifold mission of community service and supporting women in the arts.
Free to view through Swamp Sistas’ Facebook Live and participating partners’ Facebook pages.
