August 23, 2025
The Beloved Community Hosts Free Summer Fun: Beloved Barbecue
Binghamton, NY — The Beloved Community (TBC), a nonprofit inspiring volunteers to run free events, celebrates the positive impact of our summer barbecue. As part of our community meal series that includes Easter Feaster and Thanksgiving Gobbler, our successful Beloved Barbecue event helped address rising food insecurity in Broome County. Additionally, it was packed full of those joyous moments that happen when people, community organizations, local hairdressers, and volunteers are all brought together.
Held at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Binghamton – UUCB, our free event offered so many good things in the same space. All were welcome to freely enjoy plates of barbecue-style food, drink freshly squeezed lemonade, receive professional haircuts, play yard games, and walk away with school supplies and community resources.
TBC excitedly served a record-breaking 563 meals! Of those, a staggering 473 meals were given on-site, 66 more were picked up by local groups for further distribution, and 24 more re-crafted into hearty sandwiches. We loved bringing the community together through delicious barbecue!
In addition to meals, the event provided 71 free haircuts! Our fantastic volunteer hairdressers, Kelly and Tim, offered 27 professional cuts on-site. Additionally, we distributed 44 haircut vouchers from local salons to ensure even more of our neighbors could feel confident and cared for.
Students also received support, with 67 school supply packs distributed to local families! Filled with folders, notebooks, writing tools, glue sticks, crayons, scissors, and highlighters, each pack contained resources to ready our students for the upcoming school year.
We connected the community to key local resources! Our friends from Good Neighbors, UUCB, Oneonta Jobcorp, and Together for Youth tabled at the event, offering information, giveaways, and access to local programs.
We soaked up the sun while playing yard games and mingling with neighbors! Kids enjoyed picking out new companions through 72 stuffed animal adoptions. We hosted prize giveaways thanks to Binghamton Rumble Ponies and Dave & Buster’s. Our guests shared those “small world” moments of reuniting with old friends, discovering mutual connections, and forming new ones.
The Beloved Barbecue was made possible through the efforts of 56 great volunteers across multiple days who helped with setup, cooking, serving, activities, and cleanup. To ensure broad awareness and access, our outreach efforts included 161 physical advertisements across Broome County, and our friends at Glovers Transport provided free rides to the event, helping more neighbors participate in the food and fun. The hundreds of guests that showed up reflects both the need in our region and the strong community support that emerges when we create a welcoming environment for all.
We had an amazing day serving the community and hanging out with our neighbors! Thank you to everyone who helped make this event happen and to all who added to the sense of belonging that defines every TBC event.
