33 years, and all about the kids

While the economy struggles through a recession that has hit consumers hard, A Day in the Park offers family fun for free.

“You don’t have to cut this out of your schedule because of the economy,” says Margaret Lyle Jones, chairwoman of the event for the Junior League of Lynchburg and Kaleidoscope.

A Day in the Park is set to take place from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. Last year’s Day in the Park drew an estimated 30,000 visitors.

The event is now in its 33rd year and, this year, there will be the standbys, such as food, games and bouncies. There will be live entertainment groups that include Lance Chandler, Echoes of Joy and the Gospel Choir of White Rock.

Two new events will be exhibitions by the Blackwater Rollers, Lynchburg’s own roller derby team, and an exhibit of the animals of Virginia by the Nature Zone.
Thanks to sponsors of the event, the only cost to visitors is what they choose to buy from concessionaires. So, Jones said, “You can have adventure and activity without putting a hole in your pocket.”

A Day in the Park also offers its 41 exhibitors from organizations ranging from Camp Kum Ba Yah to the Sickle Cell Association of Central Virginia to get the word out for free about what they have to offer. That’s important in the current economy to many nonprofits, Jones noted.

There’s also free parking at E.C. Glass High School parking lot, with free shuttle buss service to Miller Park and back.

Other than the economy, A Day in the Park is much the same as when it started. The goal was to give nonprofit agencies a chance to showcase what they have to offer, with for-profits allowed to put on demonstrations.

It quickly became “a time for families to join together,” said Sallie Craddock, who was in the Junior League and sat on the Kaleidoscope board at that time. (Three of her daughters performed with other students at Linda Bell’s dance studio during the early Day in the Park years.)

It is, Craddock said, “a children’s day.”