OH man, this is bringing back all the feels of Monday morning all over again. ![:sob: :sob:](https://festivarian.com/images/emoji/twitter/sob.png?v=12)
The primary thing that keeps me coming back to Town Park is the absolute pure sense of community that is fostered there. I love that I can contribute something to my chosen family and learned how to do it from the best.
You, @completejohn have been crucial to this community for so long now, and I’ve garnered a lot of the desire to help from your example and kindness. There are too many pillars of this community to list but @Debbiefromtucson also worked tirelessly for far longer than I have to organize all of this craziness and she deserves huge props as well. Paul Smith, Rob Dutton, Tom Poley, Paul Campbell, ToddG, Ron Reich, Bevin (missed you this year, buddy), Hooch & Sugar, Hippie, the Greenes, Gail/Greg, TTom Lesley, the wackadoodles over at CatFactCorner and a billion other people have all put in tons and tons of behind the scenes blood sweat and tears for many many moons to build what we enjoy every year.
Massive props to all of the event holders as well. The amount of planning and effort that goes into a Loaded Potato Bar, or a Crawfishboil, organizing a beer share @ftb0003, hosting Bloodies @StarrCruiser @Age6784, a BBQ @alexbarbosa42, bringing a whole heap of ramen (we have to remember the one handed peeling trick for next year) from all of the Hulaganz, Grilled Cheeses from DukTape (Chef/Erin/Annie/Ed/KMurf), etc, Wings (Bo, Jess, Nate, Sam, Stokley, Blair, etc), the Power Hour (@CBoDenver and Tribue Crew), Tropical Tuesday @loosejello @jeff and the rest of Crossroads, Arts/crafts, kickball, TelluPride, Waffles, Tots, Slow Jam Picks, Rumballs, Hosted Happy Hours, Yucca, Chard in the Yard, etc is pretty crazy to think about. Chef provided a lot of infrastructure for these events which I know made our lives wildly easier during tots - thank you so much for that! Josh for all of the photos!
The Hard To Recycle station has been an ongoing resounding success. The biggest props go out to Jen and Cathy for spearheading that. I can’t wait to see the full report of what we were able to divert from landfills this year.
Our Camp Hosts @dezreen, Jessica, Fawnda, and team do a delightful job and work their tails off to make our experience as easy going as possible. Likewise, the folks in the Parks & Rec Office (Augusta, Linda, and Stephanie) office graciously host us Festivarians every year and put up with our ABGAT shenanigans. Special thanks to good ole Fred as well - your wife is awesome too!
I also need to recognize the folks in the Open Space Commission. They control the destiny of Zone 1 and took time out of their days to walk through the campground with us to help us better understand how we can help continue to be better stewards of the land. We look forward to continuing the dialogue for years to come!
And we can’t forget the very hardworking people at Planet Bluegrass who simply make this happen. Zach, Kyra, Geoff, and Grace (and the rest of the crew of course) are absolute rockstars and we wouldn’t be here without them.
I missed a ton of folks but this is getting kinda long.
In short, it takes a village and boy howdy, what a mighty fine village we have.
Love you all!