- project leader
- Jennifer L
- location
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Bay Street & Victory BoulevardStaten Island (St. George)
- latest update rss
- Thanks For Making This Grassroots Festival Great!
the project
St George is a vibrant, low income, racially diverse neighborhood on Staten Island's North Shore surrounding the ferry terminal. The festival takes place in an underutilized but recently renovated green space, centrally located in St. George. The festival features live music and dance performances, earth day events (composting demonstrations, free bike repair, seed ball making, herb sales), a book faire (all day readings, a book swap, a binding demonstration), kids crafts, a DIY art gallery encircling the park, contests for all ages, craft workshops and more. It is free, easily accessible and attracts thousands of people throughout the day of all ages and backgrounds. The centerpiece of the day is a dragon parade with myriad, colorful, larger than life dragons dancing throughout the park, followed by a giant dragon puppet show that includes a 35 foot dragon carried by 18 people. The show re-imagines the St George and the Dragon story so that the protagonists resolve their conflict peacefully and learn to share and wisely manage the water from the park fountain.
the steps
"The Festival is created by an all volunteer, grassroots organizing committee of local artists, activists and community organizers. We involve schools and invite children to explore the themes of community, sharing and problem solving through participating in contests, creating large puppets or making seed cards for flower fairies to hand out. Because of our commitment to the development of our local park, Partnership for Parks has generously agreed to match our donations dollar for dollar, but only when we reach $500. Help us meet our goal."
why we're doing it
The Staten Island St. George Day Festival celebrates the themes of community, resource sharing, peaceful conflict resolution, and an appreciation of our natural resources. The importance of the festival is that it educates through storytelling and spectacle, so that it reaches its audience in ways that are deep, powerful and memorable. Featuring innovative educational and community building activities such as a dragon parade, a puppet show with larger-than-life size handmade puppets (including a 32 foot dragon!), earth day events and more, the St George Day festival encourages us to take a more caring and responsible approach to the environment.
budget
(Plus $500 from Parks for total of $1,000) $350 for art supplies for kids making costumes and large scale puppets of flowers, sun & moon spirits, flower fairies and dragons for the parade and puppet show from Michael's, Dembner's Hardware and Party Place. $250 for promotional materials - translated into Spanish by local spanish speaker, to McKee technical high school to reproduce our promotional materials as a professional development and educational experience. $200 for portapotties to Frank Liquori. $500 for sound equipment. ioby fee=$40 TOTAL = $540
photos
This is where photos will go once we build flickr integrationdonors
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