Mariah Brown House needs community support

Friends of the Mariah Brown House & Museum are presenting "A Night of Song" featuring the Louis Washington Male Chorus, the Beulah Missionary Baptist Church, Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Churchand New Beginnings and Spiritual Harmonizers, among others including a reading from the play "Mariah Brown" starring Laverne Lewis-Cuzzocrea.

This is a fundraiser to help renovation and complete the "new" Mariah Brown House. The original house, at 3298 Charles Ave., was built in 1889. In 1999, The Coconut Grove Cemetery Association bought the house, which was decripit and they razed it and built a replica the next year.

To help raise money to complete the project, the Friends of Mariah Brown has been created, spearheaded by the Miami Bahamas Cultural Preservation (MBCP) group, which is affiliated with the Dade Community Foundation. The goal is $200,000. Renita Samuels-Dixon is president of MBCP and she has worked tirelessly on the project.

It would be such a great thing if the Mariah Brown House could be restored and then working down the block, restore the whole street to it's roots. It could be a great place for tourism and a place to teach Coconut Grove history from the spot of its very inception.

"A Night of Song" is Friday, October 22, is 7 pm at the Greater St. Paul AME Church (3680 Thomas Avenue). Cost is $20 for adults and $10 for children.

You can make an online donation and pick up your tickets the day of the event at Will Call, please go to http://www.dadecommunityfoundation.org/. On the bottom right hand portion of the page click "Support a Fund." Click the Donate button then enter "MBCPF-Mariah Brown House Museum,"
submit your donation and your tickets are held at the door.

Or please call 305-790-5836 for more details and to arrange an alternate method of donating.