First ‘Taste of Mid-City’ food festival held Sunday for charity

BATON ROUGE – Music, food and fun were all on the menu at the new “Taste of Mid City” festival in Baton Rouge.

“It’s just really nice to be around people that love you and want to be around you so just taking that all in and seeing the same thing with people around here being one community is a great experience,” attendee Jason Morgan said.

People attending the festival were treated to samples from Mid City eateries, while listening to music performed by music students at BR Music Studios. One band, Kitchen Sink Water, performed for the first time at the festival and truly put on a show.

“This kid was twelve years old, blew the top off the place and it was super fun and interesting to see someone as young as twelve years old is still keeping the rock alive,” Morgan said.

“I think we rocked really hard for our first real performance. We practiced a lot so definitely thanks to Mr. Chad and Mr. Garrett and also Doug too,” Kitchen Sink Water member Blake Atkinson said.

The festival was held on South Foster Drive from 1 until 5 p.m. All proceeds from ticket sales went to benefit Youth City Lab, a group of nonprofits that focus on providing resources to kids in Baton Rouge.

The festival’s founder Perry Franklin said he got the idea from working for non-profits himself. He wanted to put on a family-friendly festival in Mid City to bring people together for a good cause.

“People are showing that they have more than a heart, they want a better community and so this is an example of coming together and giving back, and also having a good time. There are good family friendly events that take place in our community so we’re just glad to start a new one, hopefully this will become an annual event and we can help non-profits every twelve months in the same vein,” Franklin said.