Delaware
Springtime events: What to do, know this weekend at the Delaware beaches
SoHo Slice opens on Coastal Highway in Rehoboth Beach
The new restaurant is located at 19340 Lighthouse Plaza.
When April hits, there’s something, or more likely many somethings, happening at the Delaware beaches every weekend.
Seasonal restaurants are opening their shutters, businesses are trying to draw in early business and more and more people are returning to the sand.
As we head toward Memorial Day, Delaware Online/The News Journal will keep you posted each week on can’t-miss events, what’s open, traffic and other things to know in Lewes, Rehoboth Beach, Dewey Beach, Bethany Beach, Fenwick Island and surrounding communities.
Here’s what you need to know this weekend, Friday, April 11, to Sunday, April 13.
Women’s+ FEST
Camp Rehoboth’s Women’s+ Fest actually starts Thursday and runs through Sunday. It’s a springtime tradition that offers “entertainment, sports, music, dancing, comedy, education and fun for women, both trans- and cisgender, nonbinary folks, and those that live on the spectrum of the feminine spirit,” according to the website.
There are Women’s+ Fest events throughout Rehoboth Beach all weekend. Visit camprehoboth.org for details.
Springtime aesthetic not your thing? Brimming Horn Meadery will host this death metal concert featuring Pessimist and other bands Friday night at 6 p.m.
It’s a free show. Brimming Horn is located at 28615 Lewes-Georgetown Highway in Milton.
This is Delaware’s biggest indoor yard sale, held in the gym at Cape Henlopen High School in Lewes. Up to 100 vendors will sell excess business inventory, handmade goods, antiques, collectibles and second-hand household items.
The Merchants’ Attic event runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, but get there early for the good stuff!
Schellville, Schell Brothers’ event venue behind Tanger Outlets Seaside in Rehoboth Beach, will host an Easter Eggstravaganza Saturday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $11 per person.
The event features, of course, an egg hunt, the Easter bunny, facepainting, balloon art, a bounce house, an obstacle course and more. Tickets will likely sell out so get them now. If you can’t go this week, there’s another event next Saturday.
Get Hopped Up
This is Schellville’s adult Easter event, starting at 5 p.m. Saturday. A $40 ticket buys you unlimited “tastings” from numerous local wineries and breweries, as well as a concert by Kleptoradio. Designated drivers get in for free, but the event is strictly for those 21 and older. Artisan shacks and food vendors will be open.
The Dogfish Head brewery in Milton hosts this free event. This year, there’s a vendors’ “Shakedown Street,” Grateful Dead giveaways and food, an Extended Play record shop, DJ Droid and custom tie-dye shirt-making.
The event takes place Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Catch Dogfish founder Sam Calagione DJing from 1 to 3 p.m.
This is Salted Vines Vineyard and Winery’s second year hosting this festival focused on wine, music and shopping.
Food trucks will be on site throughout the day Sunday and the “vendor village” will be open from 11 to 4 p.m. Music starts at noon with The Fabulous String Theory, followed by The Funsters at 4 p.m.
The event, which also features the re-release of Salted Vines’ Lower Slower Delaware wine, is free to the public. Salted Vines is located at 32512 Blackwater Road in Frankford.
Things to know
Some of these events are weather dependent. It’s predicted to rain this weekend, so check to make sure they’re still on before you go.
The north side beach at Delaware Seashore State Park has reopened after replenishment, but if you were hoping to get a look at the dead humpback whale just west of the Indian River Inlet, you’re too late. On Tuesday morning, the whale floated back through the inlet and out to sea. The Marine Education, Research and Rehabilitation Insitute is monitoring its movement.
The Lewes Tulip Festival continues, with colorful blooms making any visit to town extra special. There’s also a new playground open at Canalfront Park in Lewes.
Little Leagues throughout the country are starting their seasons. Lewes and Milton and will have Opening Day parades Saturday morning in their respective downtowns, which will cause brief road closures.
Some other road closures and construction to know about:
- Armory Road, between Dukes and Omar roads in Dagsboro, is closed through mid-May.
- If you’re headed to Slaughter Beach, the Cedar Creek drawbridge is closed until further notice.
Shannon Marvel McNaught reports on southern Delaware and beyond. Reach her at smcnaught@gannett.com.
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Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., said he is expected to make a full recovery after suffering minor injuries in a multi-vehicle crash in Delaware on Sunday that was triggered by a driver experiencing a medical emergency.
The Delaware Democrat said he was riding in one of several vehicles struck during the crash and was transported to Beebe Hospital for treatment. In posts on X, Coons thanked first responders and medical staff, adding that he was relieved that, by all accounts, no one was seriously injured.
HEART-STOPPING VIDEO SHOWS MIDDLE SCHOOLERS SAVING THEIR BUS AFTER DRIVER PASSES OUT AT THE WHEEL
Sen. Chris Coons was taken to a hospital and treated for minor injuries after a car crash in Delaware.
“Earlier today, a Delaware driver experienced a medical incident and collided with several cars, including one in which I was a passenger,” Coons wrote on X. “I was transported to Beebe Hospital and treated for minor injuries. I’m now home and expected to make a full and swift recovery.
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He later posted that he was grateful to the first responders for their prompt and professional response, as well as medical personnel at Beebe Hospital, where he was transported to.
“I’m feeling relieved and blessed that by all accounts no one was seriously injured during the crash,” Coons wrote.
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This story was produced by Spotlight Delaware as part of a partnership with Delaware Online/The News Journal. For more about Spotlight Delaware, visit www.spotlightdelaware.org.
For years, Delaware’s LGBTQ+ history has lived in fragments, scattered throughout the state.
Stories from the community have been found in shared memories, archives, temporary exhibits, small businesses, annual Pride events and community spaces.
Now, the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective is trying to give that history a permanent home in the state’s largest city.
By the end of this year, the organization plans to open The Collective, a 3,200-square-foot facility on Market Street in downtown Wilmington. It would serve as an LGBTQ+ visitor center, museum, co-working space, and community hub.
Organizers say the project would create Delaware’s first queer history museum. It would also create the first brick-and-mortar LGBTQ+ community space in northern Delaware in over 35 years – following the closure of the Griffin Community Center in Wilmington.
Similar centers exist in Sussex County and Philadelphia.For Noah Duckett, co-founder of the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective, the space’s purpose feels vital. He emphasized that while there have been “incredible events” in Wilmington, there is not a single space “to showcase all of that in a permanent way.”
“It felt like now was the most important time to have a space that was created by us, created for us, that is not going to go away,” Duckett said.
Duckett’s plans come after LGBTQ+ rights were thrust into the center of national political debates amid President Donald Trump’s second term.
Since taking office, Trump issued an executive order to recognize two sexes – male and female. His administration also issued a string of directives and orders aiming to alter health care for transgender individuals by pulling federal dollars from hospitals nationally and in Delaware that provide gender-affirming care.
Meanwhile, some states and conservative groups have called for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn its decade-old ruling, legalizing same-sex marriage.
Duckett said those government actions only increase the need to build a community center.
“We have sponsors that are pulling away, we have hospitals and agencies and government practices that are really just trying to minimize their support as much as possible,” Duckett said.
Inspired by the Griffin
Duckett and his mother, Julissa Coriano, founded the Delaware Sexuality and Gender Collective in 2018. Both are clinical social workers, sexuality therapists, and advocates in the queer community.
Duckett said their organization began as a provider of family therapy, and clinical education and training, among other things. It then expanded into social programming and direct support services. Those included hosting the Pride Closet clothing drive, and offering recovery support for people healing from gender-affirming surgery.
A brick-and-mortar space had long been part of the conversation, Duckett said.
The Collective is expected to include a visitor center highlighting LGBTQ+ businesses, organizations, and events across Delaware; a gift shop featuring local queer artists and makers; a co-working space with offices and day-pass work areas; and a community room available for meetings, events, and programming.
It will be located on Market Street in Wilmington, but Duckett said the exact address will not be announced until the lease is finalized. It will be near the historical location of Wilmington’s previous LGBTQ+ community center, the Griffin, Duckett said.
Duckett’s organization is raising $500,000 to help cover upfront rent, construction, buildout and long-term sustainability. He said the goal is to make sure the space can last.
“We don’t want to have a really great idea and then it burns out in two years because we run out of funding,” he said.
‘Not just a temporary exhibition’
At the center of the project will be a permanent museum curated by Carolanne Deal, a longtime historian focused on Delaware’s LGBTQ+ history. Deal previously led research for the state’s first digital exhibit on LGBTQ+ history.
Deal noted that queer history is rarely represented in a permanent way in Delaware museums or archives.
“It’s so incredibly important for us to have a permanent space that’s not just a temporary exhibition that comes out once a year for Pride month,” Deal said.
According to officials at the Delaware History Museum, the only active physical exhibit in their space is a certificate for the first gay marriage signed in Delaware.
The LGBTQ+ museum will feature graphics, visuals, text, as well as reproductions of newsletters and panels discussing various historical events, such as the founding of one of the first queer student union groups in the country at the University of Delaware, Deal said.
Deal plans to bring a wide scope of historical events and information about important figureheads in Delaware’s LGBTQ+ community, including Ivo Dominguez Jr. and James Welch, the pioneers who founded “The Griffin,” the state’s first queer community center, in 1986.
Building on a legacy
During the height of the AIDS epidemic, the Griffin Community Center served as a meeting place for organizations, such as the Gay and Lesbian Alliance of Delaware, or GLAD, and the state’s first HIV/AIDS service agency, now known as AIDS Delaware.
The center also hosted meetings for various other community organizations.
Dominguez and Welch, who are longtime partners, began their activism in the late 1970s, a time when the community’s advocates across the country were gaining visibility, but also facing a conservative backlash.
Over the years, they organized HIV/AIDS education and fundraising events, founded GLAD, Delaware’s first statewide gay rights organization, and opened Hen’s Teeth, the state’s first queer bookstore, in Wilmington.
The Griffin closed just four years after it opened. Dominguez said burnout contributed to its closure.
Today, apartments stand where the small row building once existed. But Dominguez and Welch said the need for a physical gathering space for Delaware’s queer community never disappeared.
Dominguez and Welch have been assisting with the creation of The Collective by attending planning meetings and doing outreach. As activists who have done the work before, Dominguez says his biggest advice to Duckett and Coriano in establishing the space is to “live as if you are free.”
“We have the benefit and the privilege right now of living in a state that is relatively kind and good to our people; we’ve got to keep it that way,” Dominguez said.
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What causes thunderstorms? Here’s how thunder and lightning form
Here are the three things a thunderstorm needs to form.
A severe thunderstorm warning has been issued for southeastern Sussex County until 2:30 p.m. June 27.
The National Weather Service located a thunderstorm over Dagsboro that is moving east. It’s expected to bring 60-mph winds and nickel-size hail to the region.
At 1:57 p.m., the NWS located a severe thunderstorm over Millville, New Jersey, seven miles north of Ocean City, moving east at 25 mph.
Hail could bring minor damage to vehicles and the high winds could damage roofs, siding, trees and power lines.
Locations impacted include Millville, Ocean View and South Bethany.
What is a severe thunderstorm warning?
A severe thunderstorm warning is issued when a storm is occurring or about to occur with winds of 58 mph or higher or hail 1 inch in diameter or larger, the National Weather Service says. These storms can also bring heavy rain and, in some cases, flooding or flash flooding.
How to stay safe during a thunderstorm
- Seek shelter immediately and once inside, stay away from windows and avoid using electrical equipment or plumbing.
- Keep a battery-powered weather radio nearby in case of power loss.
- Secure loose objects outside, as they can become dangerous during high winds.
- Bring pets inside, and if time allows, make sure fences are secure to prevent pets from escaping or running away.
- If in a car, ensure all windows are fully closed and refrain from touching radios, ignition systems or any metal parts connected to the vehicle’s exterior.
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