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Welcome to the Lisa Berrigan on Demand podcast, where we get to dive a

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little deeper with interviews you may have heard on my midday show on Big one

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hundred. Today, I want to introduce you to Kelly Hannaclaw, who is

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doing wonderful things with her Art of Life charities based in Northern Virginia. There

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gala is coming up later this month at the Hilton Performing Arts Center in Manassas

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Saturday, October twenty eighth, all the benefit the Haymarket Regional Food Pantry,

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and Kelly joined us to tell us more. Hey Kelly, Hi Lisa,

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thank you so much. I really appreciate this. Thank you for the interview.

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I understand you have a big event coming up. Tell us all about

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it. We absolutely do. We have an event at the Hilton Performing Arts

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Center in Manassas, Virginia, and it is all to benefit Haymarket Regional Food

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Pantry. This year it is a gala and we are starring Aaron Kelly,

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American Idol finalist. We also have the Prince William County Poet Laureate Amerita Kim

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B. Miller as our MC and Highlighter to Sit Down Dinner cater Dinner or

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Dervs Drinks, DJ Silent Art, auction, door prizes, I mean,

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you name it. It's going to be incredible. This sounds like a really

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nice night out. It really is going to be a nice night down.

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It's a good excuse to get dressed up and go out have fun, but

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at the same time you're actually giving back to the community. Kelly tell us

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a little bit more about this year's charity that's benefiting from the gala. This

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year, Haymarket Regional Food Pantry, located in the Gainesville Haymarket area of Virginia,

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really has had to step it up, especially since COVID, the food

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insecurity in our area has more than tripled, and this particular food pantry actually

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services individuals weekly. A lot of food pantries are only able to service individuals

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monthly, so it's a really unique setup. They have an actual like a

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storefront kind of a feel, and clients can come in and actually shop like

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they're in a grocery store and go around gather their items, and then upon

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leaving, they actually weigh the food and then they're assisted on their way out

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to their vehicles. So it makes the clients feel more empowered versus you know,

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just showing up and someone dumps a bag of groceries at you and then

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you leave kind of a thing. So they're doing amazing work. They're an

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all volunteer organization as well. Art of Life Charities is too. We're all

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volunteers here, and so is Haymarket Regional Food Pantry. So it's really just

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wonderful work they're doing in the community. So attending the gala, you were

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helping out the Haymarket Food Pantry. How can people get tickets? You can

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go to our website Art Oflife Charities dot org and tickets are available there.

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You can also see our event listed at the Hilton. That's Hilton with a

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Y Hilton Performing Arts Center. They're part of the George Mason Campus in Virginia.

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They also have it listed on their calendar as one of the featured events.

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So yeah, you can actually look at both of those, but you can buy tickets on our website directly. Kelly, how long has Art of

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Life Charities been around? Well, the idea has been around for a long

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time, but we became a nonprofit in twenty twenty one and we got our

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five oh one C three status January of this year, so it's fairly new.

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Fairly new. What inspired you to found art of life Charities? That's

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a good question, you know, I've always loved giving back, but I

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realized that what I was doing it was sort of a lot of little things

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that were spread out with no real direction, and I wanted to do something

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bigger. I just knew I definitely wanted to do something bigger and more impactful. So I'd say for about twenty years before starting on I have Life Charities,

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I mostly just volunteered in private and public schools, sort of with mom

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groups and other art centered events here and there, but always leaning toward art,

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people and need. And I realized the value of art and its therapeutic

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powers. So being an artist myself, I'm very passionate about art, and

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I've seen the value that it brings others, not only to myself actually,

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but to others. And then I also saw the need for art in the

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community from people who were actually asking me, Hey, I need this,

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or where can I find that with art? And my child is really excelling

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in art, and what can I do and where can I find this information?

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So long story short, I found this way to harness the energy of

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art for good and in sort of a more bigger and connected way. That's

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how the platform actually initially began. So how can we find out more about

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Art of Life Charities and more about the gala? Again? This gala is

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coming up very quickly Saturday, October twenty eighth at the Halton Performing Art Center

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in Minasas. Get your tickets before they sell out. So Kelly, just

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run down again where we can get tickets and more about Art of Life Charities.

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Sure, I do want to say that our mission at Art of Life Charities is to employ the arts to support communities in need. And the way

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we do that is each year we select a beneficiary, and that beneficiary is

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another organization or group who's already doing good things for people in our community.

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And then we connect these groups by helping each one. So we have an

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event we raise money for that charity or that organization and that helps bolster them

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and it just kind of like interweaves our community through art and through helping people.

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So and again this year it's at the Hilton Performing Arts Center in Manassas,

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Virginia, Saturday night, October twenty eighth, Start time as six pm.

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If you're a big sponsor. You can be a VIP and go to

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our pre party. Our VIP party at five thirty pm, but it does

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include or Dervs, dinner, drinks, silent art auction. We have DJ

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kim By Miller, our Poet Laureate Emerita. She's actually the first African Poet

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Laureate, a Poet Laureate for Prince William County in Virginia. And we have

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Aaron Kelly, who was the youngest ever Top five performer on American Idol.

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He will be our headliner. He is absolutely amazing. If you haven't heard

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him live, I had the pleasure of hearing him live myself a few years

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back. So he will be starring that night and it's just going to be

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in a fantastic evening. So I hope everyone can make it. So how

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can we find out more? Where can we get those tickets? Oh?

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Yes? Art Oflife Charities dot Org is our website. You can go there.

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All the information you need should be right there. We've been talking with

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Kelly hannah Claw, president and founder of Art of Life Charities based in Northern

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Virginia. There gala is coming up Saturday, October twenty eighth at the Hilton

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Performing Art Center in Manassas to benefit the Haymarket Regional Food Pantry. Find out

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more, get tickets at Artoflife Charities dot org