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Salmon pink and apple green are taking over Memphis.
From Tuesday March 1 through Sunday March 6, members of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority chapters in Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee will be in town for their 90th South Eastern Regional Conference.
This year’s theme, “Rollin’ Down the River with Excellence: The Grand Finale,” is in honor of Regional Director Mitzi Dease Paige’s final conference.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the last AKA South Eastern group last held its regional conference in 2019 in Knoxville, and the ladies say they are excited to be back in Memphis.
“We visited the Stax Museum, the Civil Rights Museum, Hattiloo [Theatre]. We’ve just been painting this town pink and green all week,” said Monique Merriweather, who is communication chair for the event.
The members have also been visiting restaurants throughout Downtown and nearby and keeping Uber, Lyft and limousine drivers busy.
According to Memphis Tourism President Kevin Kane, this is the third time in 15 years that the conference has come to Bluff City. This year, the conference hosted 6,000 ladies, double what was expected in 2021. Last year’s conference was canceled due to the surge of the COVID-19 Delta variant.
Many of the members are staying across hotels in Memphis, including the Sheraton Memphis Downtown Hotel with workshops and sessions covering topics in women’s healthcare, personal finance, entrepreneurship and public service taking place in the Renasant Convention Center.
“We’re just thrilled to have them back,” Kane said. “It’s wonderful to have a large group and thousands of people coming from out of town to enjoy Memphis.”
For lunch, members were able to buy food from local food trucks lined up on Exchange Ave. near the convention center, including Collin’s, Winbush World Wide Quality Grille and Grille Grabz.
“Alpha Kappa Alpha is all about supporting African American businesses, small businesses, so we wanted to make sure that we had a hand in supporting those that have really struggled throughout the pandemic, that may have had to pivot,” Merriweather said. “They may have closed their doors and went from a brick-and-mortar restaurant to a food truck. We wanted to make sure that we show them love as well. So we just want to make sure that we keep those Black dollars in our community.”.
Danielle Chavers, owner of Grill Grabz food truck, said it was the first time in the truck’s four-month history that they had served a crowd so large.
“This is our first event actually doing something this huge. And so we thought that we were prepared. But we actually sold out before lunch could even complete, so this event has had a huge impact in a good way,” Chavers said.
Chavers was off-site, on her way to pick up more inventory for the truck’s sold-out smokehouse cheeseburgers and salmon philly baskets.
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“Just for us to be here at the AKA Regional Conference. I think this has (taken) our business to another level, and I’m super excited about it.”
Chavers said the event has allowed her family: daughter Lakenda and husband and chef Lakeith to network with hopes of expanding the business beyond its food truck.
Lakenda, 14, a budding entrepreneur, was also selling her homemade lemonade from the truck..
“To see people, again, from all over talking about and raving about that particular lemonade, it’s been awesome,” her mom said.
CA reporter Astrid Kayembe covers Whitehaven, South Memphis and Westwood. She can be reached at astrid.kayembe@commercialappeal.com or 901/304-4942.
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