 Welcome to City Talk. My name is Sabrina Odom. I am the Executive Director for the North Columbia Business Association. Hi, I'm Veronica Rodriguez. I'm Vice Chairman of the Board of the North Columbia Business Association and this year's Chairman of the 2018 Cornbread Festival. The Cornbread Festival is the North Columbia Business Association's annual fundraiser that is designed to benefit the community. It is a lot of fun and a lot of fun to put together. This year we have a lot of very special events and one in particular that I'd like to talk about is we will have Miss Sonia Grantham with us. Miss Grantham is a historian and is nationally recognized for her work with corn. Corn is a recognized jubilee crop and she knows all about what that means and how that happens but her presentation is fascinating. She talks about the role of corn in America's various wars for subsistence as well as strategic uses. So her presentation is fascinating and she's going to be doing that at one o'clock, three o'clock and five o'clock in the community rooms. We're very excited about that. We also have a lot of other events going on at the festival. Sabrina, you want to tell us about those? Yes, and the other activities we have this year besides the Corn Traveling Museum might call it, we will also have the Cornbread Brunch that Warmouth is doing at 11 o'clock a.m. and that's to bring people out to the festival early and enjoy a great brunch with the Warmouth restaurant in our area. We also have the Cornbread Eating Contest. We also is going to have the Inder Coffee Might Night patio out there and of course our Playland, that's what we know for a big family event where all the children can ride for free and do all their activities for free and it's just $5 to get in. We also have, of course, a lot of other vendors coming out. We have the Pineapple Lady who was a hit last year. There was a long line for her the entire day through to the end. People were still trying to get pineapples. Of course we have BBQ vendors and all the normal festival food, snow cones, so on and so forth. We will have beer available. Cromers has a spot and in addition to that we have the Children's Area. We have all the rides of course and we have a wonderful new face painter who's going to be doing face painting for free for the children all day long. We think that Earl Wood Park is the ideal venue for us. We have moved the festival around. Those of you who follow us know we have moved it from time to time but we think this is our home and we're settling in and we're going to make great use of every part of that part. There'll be something for everyone. We'll also have golf carts available to transport seniors from different places to the other because I know that it's a lot of walking in some parts of the park or a little hilly. So don't worry about transportation and we'll have security there and just want everybody to have a wonderful safe family time. We couldn't even have the festival without the partners. That's right. And the city and the county has always been a very good partner with us but I want to name a particular department that always partnered with NCBA and that's the city OBO office. I just want to thank our new executive director for the OBO office for jumping on in on the cornbread train with us. I really appreciate everything you do and you want to name some other partners. We also get a lot of assistance from the community development department within the city. They're a wonderful partner and then we have some wonderful friends at the county that do all kinds of things for us when we call and holler in the both the county and the city have been wonderful in providing their resources to NCBA over the years for the cornbread festival as well as other things that we do because we are always trying to help a business solve a problem or provide some instruction for someone who's interested in coming into the North Main Area to start a business. That's what we're about being sure that businesses have the resources that they need to do well in the North Columbia area and it's going well. North Columbia's blossoming and growing and we're very excited about the progress that the area is making. Well, there is always an annual challenge between the city and the county. It's generally city council members and county council members and they select one person to do a cornhole toss. In the past it was a cornbread toss. I believe that out of our five years that we've held it, the county has won three times in the city. Four times. Oh, so it's a strong challenge. Last year the city won. Yes. So the trophy is with the city at the moment but the county is gunning for you. It's ready for you. We look forward to seeing that. That's always a fun event. You can contact me Sabrina Odom at 803-900-2664 or you can go to our website northcola.org or our new website nomacolumbia.com On behalf of the board of directors and staff of the North Columbia Business Association we want to thank you for listening to City Talk today and we look forward to seeing you at the annual Cornbread Festival. April 21st from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.