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Last week, I was contacted by Lise Reid, the Newburyport Parks' administrator to let me know she wanted to organize events at parks around the city in order to celebrate national park & rec month as well as to kick off Yankee Homecoming.  She gave me a date of July 30th (the day before YH officially starts) and explained the theme of "Rock Your Park".  I was on vacation at the time and told her I'd get back to her once I got home and looked at what I could do with such short notice.

Earlier this year I'd sent an Atwood Park soil sample off to U Mass for an analysis with the goal of determining what could be done to improve the health of the grass and encourage growth in the bare areas.  While I've raised some money to help (thanks everyone!), the treatment U Mass recommended was costly so I'd planned on doing something this summer to try to raise more money to help purchase fertilizer, grass seed, calcium and other recommended treatments.  This was a great opportunity to do that as well and the park commission gave their blessing to allow fundraising at this event.

So  I reached out to a number of friends and businesses that I and/or my wife have worked with in the past and everybody I've spoken with has said YES!

We have a bouncy house and cotton candy donated by All About Fun for FREE!  Shannon worked with them previously when she organized Family Day at Maudslay during YH last year.  A huge thank you to Cheryl and Tomi at All About Fun.  Cotton candy will be given away FREE (with a suggested donation). 

Given the theme of 'Rock Your Park', we obviously needed some music.

Brandon Lepere is a friend of the family.  He's also a big deal.  A really big deal.  He is a full time professional musician and spends much of his time in Nashville working with some big names.  He lowered himself to not only doing my park thing, but also agreed to put out a guitar case to collect donations for the park.  After having already asked him to perform, I was afraid to additionally ask if he would put out a guitar case to collect donations, figuring he might think it amateurish, but without hesitation he said no problem.  THANK YOU Brandon.

Butch Bazillion is another friend of the family.  He is a phenominal musician and singer.  Waaaay back in the 80's, his band Splash performed the soundtrack for the movie Speed Zone (featuring John Candy, Brooke Shields, Alyssa Milano, Jamie Farr, Dick Smothers, John Schneider, Donna Dixon and many other names you've heard before).  He will be performing as well as DJing.

We will also have Nina's Wieners there and a percentage of her proceeds will be donated to Friends of Atwood Park.

My kids Ryan & Amber will be running a lemonade stand giving away free lemonade courtesy of Friends of Atwood Park (donations appreciated). 

There will be other free activities as well, courtesy of Newburyport Mothers Club.

Lastly, at 8pm we will be showing the 5* rated Disney movie Tangled.

Hope to see many of you there!!!

Thanks, Rob