On Monday, more than 350 people braved the frigid weather for a celebration. The Kelly Strayhorn Theater on Penn Avenue welcomed the community to the seventh annual \u201cEast Liberty Celebrates Martin Luther King Jr.\u201d
\nFor most, it was a chance to experience arts and crafts, dance and music with neighbors and friends. Over two hours of performances had a packed house on its feet, while songs such as \u201cGlory\u201d from the movie \u201cSelma,\u201d were performed by Hope Academy. In the tiny theater lobby, children created poems on the \u201cpoetry wall\u201d and posed for pictures with quote bubbles that spelled out their dreams for the future.
\nFor Janera Solomon, executive director, the event was especially meaningful because it reflected the theater\u2019s mission to \u201cbring diverse groups of people together.\u201d
\nOutside the theater, scaffolding and high fencing exemplify a changing East Liberty. Ms. Solomon thinks her theater is helping to maintain a sense of community around the development.
\n\u201cWhen you treat people like they belong in the community, they participate and engage and make the community what they want it to be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
On Monday, more than 350 people braved the frigid weather for a celebration. The Kelly Strayhorn Theater on Penn Avenue welcomed the community to the seventh annual \u201cEast Liberty Celebrates Martin Luther King Jr.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":2241,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,15,187],"tags":[],"coauthors":[25],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2016\/06\/SS_20160118JRPhotoPage4-1.jpg?fit=2600%2C1230&ssl=1","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2242,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2240\/revisions\/2242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2240"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinteractive.post-gazette.com\/photos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=2240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}