Can the Fremont neighborhood handle yet another event during Fremont Fair weekend?
With so much going on in the Center of the Universe, it is no wonder we call June Fremont Month. While the Fremont Fun Run and Briefcase Relay raced by on Friday, June 8, there still remains the Fremont chamber's Picnic in the (Gas Works) Park to enjoy on Wednesday, June 20.
The month revolves around June 16 and 17, and Solid Ground's 36th-annual Fremont Fair, which features food, music, vendors and the Seattle Art Car Blowout.
In addition, on Saturday, June 16, the Fremont Arts Council (FAC) has a parade and a pageant, and this year, the group has added the Sustainable Solstice Festival, from noon until 8 p.m. at Gas Works Park.
"Our focus is going to be on art," said Sustainable Solstice Festival co-organizer Denise Henrikson. The festival incorporates a fund-raising beer garden and vendors, although "we're not focused on commerce," said co-organizer Ricky Gene Powell, "but on art and building community and exchanging information in creative ways."
"Why would they do that?" wondered Oliver Little, of Workshop, the fair's producer. He is director of the Fremont Fair, and he knows personally "there is already so much going on that weekend."
MORE PAGEANTRY
At noon on Saturday, the FAC launches its signature Solstice Parade from the western-most edge of Fremont's retail district. The parade ends nearly two miles east at Gas Works Park, where it leads into a giant puppet pageant, titled The Sun Arc, at 4 p.m.
"I'm excited about giving the pageant a frame of sustainability," Ricky Gene explained. Last year, at the last minute, he stepped in as tech director of the FAC event at Gas Works. The Sustainable Solstice Festival is, in a way, an expansion of last year's hospitality booths and entertainments.
"More and more Americans are into thinking green," Ricky Gene said.
The festival provides a dozen opportunities to learn to live green and sustainable lives in fun ways. When asked to define "sustainable," Ricky Gene and Denise spoke of not sacrificing the needs of tomorrow for the gains of today. Think of leaving no trace, of cleaning up your own campsite, in a day-to-day, practical living framework.
THINK OUTSIDE THE BOOTH
Festival organizers challenge their partner organizations to create interactive activities to educate and entertain."
Examples include an interactive exhibit by Puget Sound Bee Keepers. The Friends of Gas Works Park group gives tours and explains the history of the derelict site.
Attendees can calculate a carbon footprint with Achieve Net Green, and FAC volunteer Sarah Lovette teaches how to make toys out of recycled items. A ReCreated Fashion Show features new clothes participants made that day out of old clothes and/or trash.
Also, SCALLOPS (Sustainable Communities All Over Puget Sound) has collaborated on a Sustainable Commons for the Festival, involving neighborhood groups Sustainable Ballard, Sustainable Bainbridge and, of course, Sustainable Fremont.
The festival partnered with nonprofit groups and organizations that Denise believes otherwise would be uninvolved in either the parade or the fair.
As a veteran participant of 18 Solstice Parades, Denise is reluctant to miss one. The festival, though, gives float pushers and ensemble performers a relaxed place to gather after nearly two miles of parading.
As for the festival, "the volunteers that are putting this on aren't part of the parade," Ricky Gene explained. "Our volunteers are coming from the partnering organizations."
COMPETING EVENTS?
The festival "is a direct competition" with the fair, Oliver admitted. Fremont already has limited sponsorship resources, and the fair requires 400 volunteers to help fund-raise. The fair funds Solid Ground (formerly the Fremont Public Association) and its 30 programs aimed at their mission to end poverty in the Pacific Northwest.
"We've had many discussions," Oliver explained.
Denise and Ricky Gene recall the support of fair organizers for the festival for Saturday, when the fair is traditionally overcrowded. Oliver hesitated to admit to supporting the festival, but he is unequivocal about the FAC. "We are in full support of the parade," he said.
He knows the FAC needs an audience at Gas Works Park, and "we are in support of the pageant. And if we had space here, we would offer it."
Denise expects the festival to draw an audience, even with the fair down the street. "I believe it will be bigger," Ricky Gene said of the pageant, the festival and attendance.
No matter who goes where, it appears that June will retain, this year most especially, the title of Fremont Month - and provide opportunities to get out and enjoy, wherever!
Kirby Lindsay lives within sight of the parade route, sound of the fairgrounds and scent of the delicious food booths. E-mail her at fremont@oz.net.
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