SPRINGFIELD – Blues to Greens, Inc. has been awarded a $10,000 grant from MassDevelopment to help support their annual Jazz & Roots Festival.

Blues to Greens is a nonprofit organization with a “mission to use music to bring people together, strengthen the community and culture and help catalyze social and environmental change,” according to Executive Director and Founder Kristin Neville.

Neville was inspired to start Blues to Greens in 2013 because of her musical family and background and her marriage to husband Charles Neville, who was a part of the Nevilles Brothers from New Orleans. The Springfield Jazz & Roots Festival began in 2014.

For six years the festival took place downtown in Court Square. Last year, due to COVID-19 the festival was hosted virtually.

With the grant from MassDevelopment, the Jazz & Roots Festival will move to Downtown Springfield’s Transformative Development Initiative (TDI) District on Aug. 14.

Neville said that she hopes moving to the TDI District will help bring more people to the festival, re-energize the city and get other businesses in the area involved.

She said that she has spoken with the owners of White Lion Brewery, Dewey’s Lounge and the Ethnic Study, all black-owned businesses, about this move and possible integration.

“There’s a little bit of a potential dining district in that area and a few new Black-owned or led businesses that are opening up there. Through this process of applying for the MassDevelopment grant, we were talking with those three businesses and overall had this thought of just being more integrated with the restaurants and venues in that area,” she said. “We want to sort of support them and bring people to their businesses while the festival itself is celebrating music of the African Diaspora, American music that’s rooted in Black

Blues to Greens is also crowdfunding in the hopes of bringing in another $40,000 for the Jazz & Roots Festival. If they reach their goal, MassDevelopment will match the money and donate another $40,000. Those interested in donating to the fund are encouraged to visit springfieldjazzfest.com or bluestogreen.org.

In past years, the festival has brought in a crowd of over 10,000 people. Neville said that the event is free, will be hosted outside and they are working with the city to see if there will be any capacity limits in place. Further information and updates will be posted on their website.

After a virtual year, Neville said she is excited to bring back the festival and spotlight diversity.

“We’re just trying to be as inviting and embracing of diverse people and spotlight the diversity of Springfield itself, the diversity of its population through the music and the activities and some of the educational programming that we present along with the musical performances,” she said.