St. Patrick's Day In Baltimore Means Party, Food & Fundraising
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Decorations, dancing and corned beef and cabbage, it's all part of St. Patrick's Day in Baltimore.
Ron Matz reports the wearing of the green also gives people celebrating a chance to help others.
From Irish dancing to Irish coffee, it's St. Patrick's Day in Baltimore. The lights at Max's on Broadway are recycled plastic beer kegs.
"We have recycled beer kegs. They come from overseas, so they come in plastic so we don't have a way to re-use them and I hate throwing them away. So we came up with some creative ways to use them around the bar and one of the ways is to use them as lights to celebrate different things here in Fells Point," said Michael Metcalf, Max's on Broadway. "We actually use these same lights for Christmas and I switched them out to green lights for St. Paddy's Day and they just flop down on the back side and I can just prop them back up for different events."
You can buy a shamrock to help the Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA).
"In stores all over Maryland you can find the shamrocks. The green ones are $1 and the yellow ones are $5 and you can just make a donation at the register. The shamrocks are at Lowe's, Popeye's, Bob Evans, Burger King, Superfresh, 7-Eleven, Papa Auto Parts and Shannon's Saloon," said Jaime Kaley, MDA Maryland.
Maybe St. Patrick will move you to buy a shamrock to help MDA.
"The money goes to help fund our clinic at Johns Hopkins. We have a MDA Summer Camp that is fully accessible for one week for all our children. We help with repairs to wheelchairs and leg braces and we loan out durable medical equipment and we fund vital research as well," said Kaley.
On the menu Thursday is a lot of corned beef. It's the busiest week of the year for Baltimore's Saval Foods.
"We are very busy. We produce three times the amount of corned beef in this period than we do at any other time of the year. It's about 300,000 pounds of corned beef going to restaurants, pubs and retail stores. We sell a lot of the raw product to grocery stores," said Paul Saval, Saval Foods.
Meanwhile, the big shamrock at Max's is drawing a lot of attention.
"We like doing fun and exciting things down at Max's and it's a great way to celebrate different things," said Metcalf.
Thursday's activities in Baltimore included a special mass at St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Fells Point.
