Happy Saturday! I’m really excited today! As you can see I’m wearing my Be Kind from Ben’s Bells logo button and we are going live! First, before we move on, I want you to notice over to the left; we’re in downtown Tucson and you can see the Be Kind Ben’s Bells wall which is a tile mural.
Be Kind with Ben’s Bells
This is Ben’s Bells! We’re right in front of the new building, which is a new apartment complex here in Tucson. There’s 1 East and one West Broadway and I’m gonna let James spin around and show you the two buildings. The building on the left is a new tower that came up about a year ago and that building is rented out. Those are luxury apartments that rented for about $2400 a month. The building to my right over here is the new twin to that building and those are three-bedroom condos running about $3000 a month. Who knew that would happen in downtown Tucson?!
I also want to tell you a little quick tip; if you scan back over there to that podium, what you’re seeing over there at the Be Kind podium is actually going to become a six-story marketplace in that that triangle right there. That development was just announced, it will be six stories with apartments and commercial, retail and a courtyard, very European in flavor. Atleast from what I could see on a development maps.
Then we’re right in the heart of downtown Tucson, so let’s scan over here and i’m going to show you Ben’s Bells shop!
Ben’s Bells Shop
Ben’s Bells shop is this cute little house-looking office that’s right in the middle of downtown. We’re going to do a great Ben’s Bells event tonight for 2nd Saturday and i’m going to be in front of our office at 216 E Congress from six to nine. Its 2nd Saturday, so it’s gonna be a blast!
If you come visit us down there, we’re going to be promoting Ben’s Bells products. They have a new ornament out which they do every year. It’s the dove ornament and it is blush pink, I believe, is the new color for the year. We’re also going to have a balloon guy making balloons, those funny animal balloons for the kids and then we will have a photo board so you can take cool photos and post them and go viral with them for Ben’s Bells to promote the charity.
Plus, somebody’s gonna win some really cool prizes, the person who gets the most likes and shares, so that’s a really cool event we have going on and I would love it if you would come visit us downtown and support Ben’s Bells. Get out of the house, come down and play with us tonight, it’s gonna be a blast!
Let’s go take a look in here because Ben’s Bells makes a lot of really beautiful products and all of this is the Be Kind project. It’s about random acts of kindness and doing the smallest of things and what effect that has on others and i have to tell you, right now with all the sadness i’m seeing on Facebook and all these places, there’s a lot of political hate and stuff going on and I would love to see all of us promote Be Kind and let’s get out there and change the world one person at a time!
Studios At Ben’s Bells
Let’s hop in and i want to show you the Ben’s Bells shop! We’re in the studio area and they actually have studios here if you want to come volunteer. Ben’s bells has these beautiful studios you can come down and you can make the beautiful ceramic products with them and you can bring a group you can do a birthday and they actually set up the whole thing for you and your friends to come down and just volunteer to paint ceramics and make these beautiful Ben’s bells products for the charity.
You can see the beautiful courtyard and there’s some studios over there. What you’re looking at is this really nice event courtyard that they do grant out for events which is right in the heart of downtown, so that’s nice to know, and then they also have studios where you actually get to go paint and do fun stuff with the ceramics and i’ll show you what they make!
While You’re Here…
Right next door, if you do pop in here, is a cute little shop called Riveted. The shop sells some really cool little old stuff that you wouldn’t find, it’s like a little antique store but it’s boutique antique store, thats what I call it.
And Finally, The Little Shop of Wonders
We’re in Ben’s Bells shop with Jessica and she’s holding down the fort today. You guys make a lot of beautiful products and there are these are really fun coins, i just bought some of these myself, that you give out to somebody when you see somebody doing a random t act of kindness, it says to that person that we’ve acknowledged them and appreciate them and this is something cool to pass kindness forward. That’s the goal with this, so these are really neat!
Buy a 10 pack or 20 pack or whatever and give them out. You keep them in your pocket and I noticed what happens for me is now I’m starting to be very aware of watching other people and what they’re doing around me and watching these acts of kindness which makes me more grateful everyday and it makes me appreciate Tucson more and the people around me. It’s really cool to even carry one of these in your pocket, it just changes things for you, it’s a neat effect!
They have these ornaments and bells for sale right now. Are these ornaments or bells? The little smaller ones could be used as ornaments 🙂 If you know Ben’s bells, what they are known for is that 200 Ben’s bells are hidden around local areas every month and those 200 are random act of kindness from Ben’s bells and what happens is someone finds them and they get to take it home. It’s been going on for almost 14 years.
They also have beautiful stuff like note cards, these giant mosaic tiles that you can put on walls, they have mugs, there’s hoodies; if you come down tonight to our office they’ll have a lot of these for sale. They’re super soft!
The dove ornament that I talked about earlier will be there tonight, and that’s blush pink which is this year’s color. Blush pink will not be done again, only this year!
Moving on…
We’re gonna say bye to Jessica and we’re going to go back outside because there’s some really nice people that want to come in here and shop and we’re gonna get out of their way. We’re excited to promote them tonight and try to get some more awareness for Be Kind and be out there on the streets. 2nd Saturday is gonna be packed tonight, as always, it’s great fun so it’ll be a great event for everybody. Please come see us!
Ice Cats Hockey
Whoever comes to me tonight by six o’clock, I have two Ice Cat hockey tickets in my hand right now, pretend they’re here, i have them at the office and i will give them to the first person who walks up and asked me for them. The match start at 7:30 at the Tucson Community Center. Everybody that’s been to a game has said they’re phenomenal fun, they’re just outrageous fun, so if you want to go to the game tonight you need to get to me at six o’clock at the downtown office. The first person in,I will hand them those tickets to go to the TCC.
Open Studio Tours
Besides 2nd Saturday going on tonight, I wanted to let you know that there is the Artist Studios holding Open Studio Tours, and you can go to openstudiotours.com and they have all of the art studios in downtown and the southern area of Tucson. All of them open up for self-guided tours so you can see all the cool stuff that these artists are making down here.
What To Do Next Week
El Tour de Tucson
Let’s talk about next week! Next week is one of our big events in Tucson called El Tour de Tucson. That event starts at Armory Park, here in downtown Tucson at 7am, but you want to check our website at SeeTucsonHomes.com and click on the Things To Do button and you’ll go over to the events calendar. There, you can see all the information. There’s a route schedule and everything that they’re doing.
It’s important to know their route schedule as a Realtor, we show property so we have to know the route schedule for all eternity Tucson because there are blocked streets running all the way through Tucson, Arizona and it’s a big event with a lot of people so you don’t want to try to cross paths, there are certain roads that will be closed down. If you’re going to be on about playing, make sure you check the route schedule, go to SeeTucsonHomes.com and then Things To Do.
Tucson Museum of Art
The other thing i want to tell you about is next week is this really cool event that i love to go to. Its at the Tucson Museum of Art. There will be a ton of holiday artists and crafts and things to buy for next weekend. I believe that event is two days, but i would check our website and SeeTucsonHomes.com.
Tony’s Tech Tip
My tech tip for you today is, if you’re going to come down here this weekend and next weekend or anytime, tonight you can’t park here because its 2nd Saturday, so my tech tip is to drive straight through Tucson, get over to the Mercado which is right off of the Broadway Congress exit, you’re gonna pull into the Mercado and you can park there for free, jump on the Light Rail and come back on the Light Rail.
There’s two light rail apps that will help you. You can go to GoTucson (App Store | Play Store), which is an app that will let you pay for your light rail rides right on the app, and parking in Tucson. You can also download the app called TucsonStreetcar (App Store | Play Store) and it will show you where the streetcars are all in route, at all times, so you get an approximation of how long one is going to take to get to you. There’s two great apps: TucsonStreetcar and GoTucson. Get those!
The other place you could park, by the way, you can park over at any of the garages by the U of A. If you park at the U of A garages, you would jump on the Light Rail right at University Main Gate.
I think that’s it for today! Please come visit us tonight, we’re gonna have a blast! We’ve got a balloon guy making cool animal balloons for the kids, we’ve got a cool photo board and were giving away prizes and, more than anything, we’re going to support Be Kind. Please come visit us tonight!
Darren says “Hi,” he hopes to back someday 🙂
Thanks for always tuning in! Have a great day! I’m Tony Ray Baker with SeeTucsonHomes.com and my phone number is (520) 631-8669
