Last weekend we attended My Big Fat Bawlmer Wedding, a yearly fundraiser for The Baltimore Art & Music Project. The event was a strange mix of small town wedding, kitsch, and down home Baltimore attitude. Beer was distributed by the pitcher, and the food served buffet style, as a wedding band played in the background, and an Elvis impersonator renewed the vows. The evening was filled with contests, prizes, dancing, and lots of hons, including Baltimore’s Best Hon, Charlene Osborne!
But all of this fun was with much greater purpose. The Baltimore Art and Music Project is a Baltimore County Non-Profit Arts Organization mostly serving the Dundalk Community. Its founder and Executive Director, Carla Crisp, started the organization over 15 years ago with the mission to “Provide opportunities for the community – and for young people in particular – to experience, participate in and create music and the arts as a way to strengthen, uplift and renew the spirit and well-being of the individual and the community.”
BaltimoreAMP is, and always has been, a labor of love. When you encounter Carla Crisp, it is clear where all of that love is coming from: Carla exudes it, and her laugh and smile create an infectious feeling of joy. Perhaps this is part of the success of the organization—at its core they spread happiness through art to populations who have the least amount of access to cultural activities.
Carla is quick to point out the discrepancy in arts funding between Baltimore County and Baltimore City, with the County receiving only a tiny percentage of the funding Baltimore at large receives each year. Yet the lack of public funding doesn’t seem to stop anyone at BaltimoreAMP, and only leads them to more creative ways to fund their nearly 50 activities per year.
From live performances and arts workshops in Homeless Shelters, to public concerts for teens, to the yearly DunFest and Summer Solstice Party, BaltimoreAMP works endlessly to provide programming to those who need it most, while serving as an “organization devoted to societal change through the healing powers of art, culture and music.”
Even at this strange wedding, there is evidence of this project working, The band, Prestige Worldwide, is led up by a lead singer who herself attended BaltimoreAMP’s programs as a teen.
Since its inception, BaltimoreAMP has held more than 205 underground concerts for youth ages 14+, serving close to 20,000 young people. In addition, in less than five years, BaltimoreAMP planned and coordinated over 65+ community events for families and adults to help revitalize Dundalk’s “Main Street” district. Carla and her team remain hard at work to ensure that the culturally creatives in any and every community has an outlet to experience, engage with and participate in the arts.
All in all, My Big Fat Bawlmer Wedding was a uniquely strange, and uniquely Baltimore event, raising funds for a great cause, led by truly wonderful people. In the end, what more can you really ask for in an evening?
