Hear pop music with a classical twist the weekend of Nov. 18-19. For two nights in a row, the Rostova String Quartet—a group of classically trained musicians from Dalhousie’s Fountain School of Performing Arts—will perform covers ranging from Leonard Cohen to Lady Gaga at the Sanctuary Arts Centre (100 Ochterloney Street, Dartmouth).
The music spans “all different” eras, concert organizer Lisa Blair tells The Coast.
“There’s a little bit of everything. There’s Elvis, Frankie Valli, The Beatles… some stuff from movies.”
The pair of candlelit concerts are in support of the North Grove community hub: The Dartmouth-based nonprofit offers a range of programming, from child development to tackling food insecurity through urban farming and cooking. Founded nearly 29 years ago as the Dartmouth North Family Centre, it merged with the Dartmouth North Community Food Centre in 2020 to become a single not-for-profit serving the historically disadvantaged north end of Dartmouth.
“We’ve been assisting families for a long time,” says Anne-Marie McElrone, director of partnership development with North Grove. “[It’s] often been an area where a lot of people are living on low incomes, or [raising kids as] single parents, because rents have traditionally been cheaper there.”
Now based out of 6 Primrose Street, just across the road from Brule Street Park and not far from the North Dartmouth Community Garden, North Grove has become a beacon of the good that comes when a neighbourhood bands together: Last year, it served more than 44,000 meals and snacks to families in the community. Volunteers gave nearly 5,900 hours of their time to helping programs run. Each year, McElrone tells The Coast, North Grove grows roughly 3,000 pounds of produce, ranging from kale to carrots to potatoes.
“Part of it, obviously, is we want to produce foods… that the community can take home and eat for free,” she says. “But we also want the farm to be a place where people can learn about growing food, where kids can experience what it’s like to pull something out of the ground and eat it.”
It has been a difficult year, McElrone says—more challenging, even, than the COVID-19 pandemic years of 2020 and 2021. Attendance at North Grove’s community meals grew by 45% from June 2022 to 2023. The nonprofit’s subsidized market—where people can buy groceries at more affordable rates—has seen the effects of a growing affordability crisis across Nova Scotia.
“We’ve got almost twice as many people looking for subsidized food [compared to] previously,” McElrone adds.
In the midst of those challenges, the weekend Light The Way concert series is “fantastic” news, she says. One-third of North Grove’s annual budget relies on community donations—and unlike most government funding, which is often restricted by programming, donations allow the nonprofit to direct their resources to the areas of greatest need.
Tickets for the concert ($42.42 each) are still available for both Saturday, Nov. 18 and Sunday, Nov. 19. Both shows start at 7pm and run until 8:15pm. All proceeds go to North Grove.
