The flood anniversary is bringing dozens of events to downtown Cedar Rapids.
Today through June 27, the Cedar Rapids Downtown District will host three main events and 35 additional events as a part of RIVERenaissance.
The district has been working on this series of events since a few months after the flood, when officials agreed on the need to have big anniversary recognition.
The organization tried to create a diverse lineup to appeal to everyone, said group spokeswoman Quinn Pettifer.
“The balance gives us a chance to find the underlying message of the community coming together,” she said.
The main events are Thursday through Saturday.
On Thursday, MVP Visual Media Studios will premiere its documentary “Resilience: The Spirit of Humanity” at the U.S. Cellular Center. Historian Mark Stoffer Hunter will present a time capsule that will be sealed for 50 years. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. for the free event.
The second main event, Sweet Reunion, will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday in Greene Square Park to celebrate the return of businesses to the downtown area. The Downtown District estimates 82 percent of downtown businesses damaged by the flood have reopened.
People can buy a brown bag lunch from downtown restaurants, eat free dessert and watch the band McPhisto.
“It’s a chance to honor the volunteers and businesses, but it’s also to show we’re not done yet,” Pettifer said.
The final main event is Floodstock, a musical fundraiser with proceeds going the Downtown District to help with flood relief.
It will start at noon Saturday in Greene Square Park. Musical acts include Stranded in Iowa, Aeroroot, Craig Erickson, McPhisto, Copper Moon, Greenbrier, Skin Kandy and Hairbangers Ball.
At 7 p.m., the event transitions into a 21-and-older crowd. The headliner, Hairbangers Ball, will wrap up the evening with cover songs from the ’80s and ’90s.
As I listened to my radio at work this past couple of weeks I find myself becoming more and more angry every time I hear the commercial for “flood stock”. It says lets “celebrate” last years flood. I don’t find this clever at all. For those of us directly impacted by the flood we are still in a wourld of hurt, and by saying hey lets celebrate is almost a slap in the face. Let me tell you about the celebration I’ m having this week. I just found out from my credit union they can not re-finace my home that has an ARM mortgage because I had to take SBA disaster loan. I now owe more on my house than it is actually worth. The value dropped after the flood and even after the repairs were done the city dropped the value even more. we were forced to apply for the SBA loan by FEMA. They said now that you have applied for FEMA you MUST apply for the SBA disaster loan. I think any good doctor would tell you not to make any big finacial decision at a time of trama and disaster. So we did what we were told and was approved for the loan. So what do you do , you want to fix your home or not? At this time there was no jump start yet . Yes we applied for jump start but since we had already started repairs and bought materials, jump start would not pay for much of it because it was not what they approved. So what we recieved from jump start was very little. Our last hope is a referral from Iowa mortgage help, but who knows if that will save us from finacial disaster. So yes lets celebrate the nightmare that left thousands of people in finacial ruin, still with out a real home, not knowing if there will ever be real recovery for most of us. FLOOD STOCK ? Or maybe the nightmare continues.