True Nirvana Festival: The Get Back
This day was one of the best, if not the best day of my life. Since I was a young girl I’ve always wanted to throw an event that everyone could come to for a good time. As I grew older and started realizing the disadvantages I was subjected to as a Black girl from the Bronx, I wanted to focus an aspect of that event on providing usual and necessary services. Keep in mind, I went to private school my entire life which is supposed to automatically set me up for better opportunities. Yet and still there were plenty of road blocks set up to keep me stagnant. Realizing that I was “set up to succeed” but still had to complete 100 times the work to get what I deserved I knew I had to do something to make it easier on future generations. Especially for the people who didn’t have the benefits of a private education.
There are things I disliked about attending Catholic high school like the lack of history we learned but I knew I was getting a much better education than the majority of the public school kids I knew. It made me sad to think about how the public school system is so faulty and poor. I knew I had a larger battle to fight and I knew bringing people and their resources together would solve that. It truly does take a village to raise up a child and I want to create one; a family that is not only resourceful but present.
Now that I am older and have the means to create the change I want to see I am doing just that. I now have a nonprofit organization, True Nirvana Cares Incorporated. Our mission is to provide the community with safe spaces for wellness, scholarship, travel, community building and service. Through the Get Back we share a mini sampling of what we will one day offer daily to the people of the Bronx and eventually other disadvantaged areas around the world. There are almost 800 million people in the world suffering from starvation. Hunger should not be a world problem. Homelessness should not be a world problem. Lack of education and support should not be a world problem. Unfortunately, these are only a few of the problems we have in this world. I can’t stand for a world like that… I just won’t.
The flow for the day of The Get Back was exercise and workshops in the morning then lunch and entertainment in the afternoon. That’s pretty much how it went… I mean we were late starting, people began trickling in around the latter part of morning and by the afternoon we had a full house. Most of the clothes and supplies were taken by people who needed them. Crowds filled in at the workshops to learn wellness tips and true American history. People registered to vote. Everyone ate a fantastic meal and made new friends along the way. The musical acts tore down the house. The community was happy to see the services available to them. As for me, I was just happy to be there.
The most mind boggling thing about all of this is that I didn’t even get my entire idea out at our first festival. There was so much I didn’t know about hosting a festival that I learned last year. I look forward to learning more and watching my baby grow into the “Coachella for the community”. This year the date of the True Nirvana Festival: The Get Back is on September 21st, 2019 at 12pm. More details will be available at the beginning of summer. If you haven’t already, sign up for our email list so you can receive an update when more information is available.
2019 is going to be bigger and better so get ready to pull up for a day filled with peace, love and fun.
See you there!
Peace and Travel.
Photos by: Clinton Mingo Photography