The Potter’s House, the nonprofit café, bookstore, and community event space in Adams Morgan, strives to create a warm and welcoming environment for everyone, regardless of means.
In addition to selling from a curated selection of books and hosting events for a diverse lineup of authors and artists, the progressive-minded venue also offers free hot meals to anyone in need through its longstanding Pay It Forward food security initiative.
That need has “skyrocketed during the pandemic, to levels we’ve never seen before,” reads the Potter’s House website.
Largely through cash donations from guests, The Potter’s House has been able to give away more than 30,000 free meals since the spring of 2020, for an average of nearly 2,000 meals a month.
This Saturday, local queer bands All Her Muses and Boy Meets Pearl will perform a concert doubling as a fundraiser for the Pay It Forward cause.
Formed five years ago by disabled poet/singer Natalie E. Illum and musician/composer Grey Jacks, the cleverly named All Her Muses has grown from harmonizing on covers of pop, rock, and folk hits to doing so with their own original tunes.
Earlier this year, the ensemble self-released the debut album Not Speaking in Metaphor, described as “part-punk, part-heartbreak, part-dance mix — inspired by unexpected breakups, depression cycles, and a few questionable decisions.”
Also on the bill is Boy Meets Pearl, a “carousel punk quartet” led by multi-instrumentalists Christian Crowley and Sea Griffin, the latter of whom you may also know as the wildly imaginative drag act Lucretia Blozia. (Crowley and Griffin also occasionally perform in The Diane Scream Show, billed as “the DMV’s only Diane Rehm-themed Talking Heads tribute band.”)
Styled as a kind of nontraditional carnival funhouse act, Boy Meets Pearl performs rather eccentrically themed original songs — exploring, among other things, “time rifts, conjoined twins, tiger sharks, and the meaning of life” — with truly eccentric instrumentation, including “accordion, glockenspiel, autoharp, Chapman stick, trumpet, baritone saxophone, cajon, cello, and violin.”
For this special evening event, the café and bookstore, which normally closes daily at 2:30 p.m., will be open for business.
Saturday, Aug. 27, at 7 p.m. Potter’s House is at 1658 Columbia Road NW.
There is a suggested minimum donation of $10 at the door.
Visit www.pottershousedc.org or call 202-232-5483.
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