Carols, Crafts, and Cocoa!

By Emily King

We invite you to kick off the holiday season for “Carols, Crafts, and Cocoa”, hosted by Pittsburgh Youth Chorus on November 16 from 1:00 to 3:30 at Pine Township Community Center. After last year’s huge success, the event has been moved to this larger indoor space with even more opportunities for holiday fun!

The event will feature fun activities for kids and grownups. Kids under age 12 can participate in holiday crafts, face painting, and games. Santa will even be making a special appearance for visits and photos!

Outside of the kid’s area, adults can browse from a curated selection of vendors to get a start on their holiday shopping with unique and handmade gifts like custom cookies, fudge, and other goodies from diverse local businesses. Guests can try their luck in winning raffle baskets created and donated by local businesses and Pittsburgh Youth Chorus families.

Don’t miss the cookie walk, where you can purchase a box and fill it with a huge selection of homemade cookies baked and donated by PYC families. Enjoy a cup of hot cocoa with your cookies, compliments of Walnut Grill.

Northern Connection will be on hand, hosting “Cards for a Cause,” a creative effort to thank our local medical heroes who go above and beyond in their jobs every day. Adults and children can stop by our station to make and decorate cards for AHN staff. Children from PYC will hand deliver these cards to doctors, nurses, and other professionals in the coming weeks.

The afternoon will close out with a joyful performance by PYC youth training choirs.  

In bringing the friends and family together to celebrate with holiday merriment, Pittsburgh Youth Chorus hopes to introduce the community to its robust program offering. You’ll meet instructors and children from the area’s training choirs, which is the first step in PYC’s music education program for children in first and second grade. PYC has four neighborhood training choirs located in Shadyside, Coraopolis, Allison Park, and Upper St. Clair, so everyone can find a chorus close to home. 

PYC’s training choirs are designed to enrich music reading skills, promote healthy choral singing in a group environment, encourage positive peer interaction and lay the foundation for participating in the next level of their choral programming. Their other programs include core choirs for grades 3-8, high school choirs, and their cantate choir, a neurodiverse choir for singers with physical, intellectual, emotional, and/or social challenges. 

Pittsburgh Youth Chorus was formed in 1983 to give area children the opportunity to explore music in a supportive and creative environment. The experience of singing together as a group creates a deep sense of belonging and connection, which are vital to children. 

Guests are asked to register ahead of time by scanning the QR code or visiting https://form.jotform.com/252013959779167 . There is not an entrance fee but PYC will be taking donations, which can be made upon registration or at the door. All donations will help offset the cost of the event and support PYC programming. We hope to see you there!