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Care about the folk festival? Join the grassroots
rally behind it
by Joel Gaspin
Does the Takoma Park/Silver Spring community want the Folk
Festival to continue? If so, it's time to step up and be counted.
We can't continue taking it for a given.
For 27 years, the Takoma Park Folk Festival has been a source
of community pride. It's genuine and it's home-grown. While
maintaining free admission, the festival raises thousands
of dollars each year to support local youth organizations.
The festival will take place this year, as planned, on September
12 at Takoma Park Middle School. There will be more than 100
performers at eight music and dance stages, 20 food vendors,
a juried crafts show with more than 40 artisans, more than
90 information tables set up by community organizations, and
myriad children's activities. We expect the usual huge crowd
of 6,000 to 12,000 folks.
However, I fear that as a community, we have started taking
for granted the existence of the festival. At this point,
the future of the festival seems quite uncertain to me.
As most of you probably know, our beloved chairperson, Lenore
Robinson, was taken from us suddenly and tragically in April
of this year. We on the festival committee are struggling
to overcome the personal loss, as well as the loss of Lenore's
leadership and inspiration, and her 27 years of experience
and encyclopedic memory of festival details. We have committed
ourselves to making the Festival a success this year, to honor
Lenore's work. We are dedicating this year's Festival to Lenore's
memory, and, since dancing was her particular passion, we
have renamed the dance stage "The Lenore Robinson Dance
Stage."
When I began volunteering as Community Tables Coordinator
five years ago, I was amazed that this huge, well-organized
event could be put on by a bunch of "unqualified"
volunteers, and was curious as to how that was possible. I
found out. Although the hundreds of volunteers who pitch in
on the weekend of the festival are absolutely vital, the engine
that drives the festival is a small cadre of highly committed
folks who are responsible for planning, promotion, logistics,
and organization in the months leading up to the great day.
I found that there were 10 or 12 hard-working folks shouldering
significant continuing responsibilities, but Lenore was the
one person whose commitment, vision, attention to detail,
and enormous input of time and energy inspired and energized
the festival organizers and made the whole thing work.
In addition to the enormous personal loss we are all feeling,
there is the practical matter of filling the huge hole Lenore's
passing left in the nuts-and-bolts of putting on the festival.
Over the past few years, as folks dropped out of the festival
for various reasons, we have had trouble filling the jobs.
Lenore typically stepped in to fill the void. She assumed
specific responsibility for coordinating the food vendors,
parking and traffic control, and chairing the Program Committee
(coordinating performers, stages and related logistics) this
year–in addition to her regular overall responsibilities
of planning and running the festival; interfacing with the
City of Takoma Park, the county, the middle school, and sponsors;
and coordinating the efforts of all the other festival organizers.
This year, we also lost our volunteer coordinator and beneficiary
coordinator (interfacing with the youth organizations which
benefit from the festival) prior to Lenore's death.
Right now, we simply have too much work for the organizing
committee to reasonably undertake. We are stretching as far
as we can, but we are desperate for the community to step
forward and show that it values the festival and wants it
to continue.
We need people who are willing and able to devote at least
a few hours a week for the months leading up to the 2004 Folk
Festival, and to take personal responsibility for an aspect
of the organization. No experience with events is necessary.
All you need is the desire and commitment to help make the
festival a success and the time to devote to do the necessary
planning, coordination, and work. We will work together to
help new people find a suitable job, and to figure out how
they should do it.
Of course, we would also welcome the return of folks who
have been involved previous festivals, who could bring their
experience and knowledge to bear. At this time, several important
jobs are unfilled: Food Vendor Coordinator, Volunteer Coordinator,
Beneficiary Coordinator, and Parking Coordinator. If you have
interest in any of these jobs, or just want to find out what
you can do to help, please attend our next festival committee
meeting on June 8 or the following one on June 30. Both are
at 8 p.m. at the Municipal Building.
If you have questions or want to find out
what the responsibilities of the specific open jobs are, please
send an email to info@tpff.org,
or leave a phone message at 301-589-0202. You can find general
info on the festival at our web page: www.tpff.org.
You may send me an email at tables@tpff.org
or call me at 301-891-2549. It's time to show what the community
is made of.
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