The
Fairmount Park Conservancy, which works to preserve and improve the park system through the city, is certainly no slouch when it comes to fundraising. Its $500-a-head Centennial Celebration, for instance, takes place each May and generally brings in about $500,000, or half the organization's annual operating budget.
Which is all well and good. After all, city parks can't operate without competent management and regular maintenance, neither of which come cheap. But the Conservancy's board wants to engage a broader swath of Philadelphia. Four years ago, they started discussing ways to connect with the next generation of park champions. The result was the development of a more accessible event.
"Everybody's a park user in the Philadelphia region, and we found that so many people want to support the parks," says Conservancy Executive Director Kathryn Ott Lovell. "So why not offer an alternative opportunity?"
That alternative opportunity, known as
GLOW in the Park, now happens at the beginning of each fall season.
The third installment is scheduled to kick off at dusk on October 9. The Strawberry Mansion Music Pavilion in East Fairmount Park will be aglow with lights and the entertainment will include live music and "unusual performances." (Fire dancers have been featured at previous GLOW in the Park incarnations.)
In a nod to the Music Pavilion's heyday at the start of the 1900s, entertainment with an early twentieth-century theme will also be on offer.
And while the Conservancy expects to raise about $45,000 from this year's GLOW, fundraising is not the event's only goal: it's also about recruiting and engaging people who use Philadelphia parks on a regular basis.
"We see this as an opportunity to turn park users into park supporters," explains Lovell.
Tickets are $75 and include a one-year Conservancy membership.
Writer: Dan Eldridge
Source: Kathryn Ott Lovell, Fairmount Park Conservancy