Over one hundred neighbors, friends, and families came out on Sunday, October 18, to help Friends of Shipe Park celebrate our inaugural Hyde Park Fall Festival! Neighbors gathered from all over to celebrate this fest alongside the 4th Annual Basketball Skills Contest. The weather was sublime and the park was full of good energy and community spirit all afternoon into the evening.
A few highlights:
The Annual Basketball Challenge: Huge thanks to Hyde Park neighbors Joe James and Cecelia Camarillo for organizing the competition, and to their son DJ Juls for his musical selection!
Kids of all ages showed off their artistic flair by decorating and carving pumpkins at our designated picnic table! Thank you to Maudie Edwards and our lead sponsor, CG&S Design-Build, for her generosity in providing a rock painting table. It was a runaway hit with our younger neighbors.
Folks enjoyed hot dogs and sausages from The Hot Dog Wally (courtesy of FOSP), cool paletas from Mamas & Papas (courtesy of Sam Archer), and delicious cookies and sweets donated by Quack’s 43rd Street Bakery!
A Blooming Bonus: Neighbor Sally DeGiovanni decorated our picnic tables with beautiful floral arrangements which brightened the atmosphere. Thank you to our generous neighbors who made donations to take these home, raising $200 directly for Shipe Park improvements! It is donations like these that truly sustain what we do.
And who could forget our night cap – a wonderful rendition of familiar tunes from Austin’s local adult community brass band, Blowcomotion! They truly blew us away!
A final thank you to Preservation Austin for staffing an informational table. Our neighbors were delighted to learn about their work in preserving our beautiful city!
A Heartfelt Thank You to Our Generous Sponsors
Our community events would not be possible without local support. Thank you to our leading sponsor, CG&S Design-Build, as well as Farm to Table Produce, Quack’s 43rd Street Bakery, and Fairweather Cider Co. for their delicious drinks.
To Our Incredible Volunteers: Thank you to everyone who pitched in—from hauling tables and chairs, running the welcome and voter information tables, manning the t-shirt station, running out for extra cookies and fending off the marauding hungry boys, and to our whole team for keeping everything running smoothly.
Special thank you to neighbor John Woldum for his coordination of this awesome event!
Thank you to everyone who came out to play, eat, craft, and connect. We truly could not have asked for a better way to kick off the fall season together in Hyde Park!
See you around the park!
Sincerely,
Friends of Shipe Park
