By Heidi Bailey
It was nothing but fun last Saturday at Rohnert Park’s first Family Fun Day at the new City Center Plaza in downtown Rohnert Park.
On a bright sunny morning, a crowd of people stood outside two stone pillars marking the entrance to the new park as RP Mayor Amie Breeze gave a welcoming speech, thanking all the entities involved in its creation, including those putting on the event. Among them, The Community Voice newspaper and the Rohnert Park Chamber of Commerce hosted the event. She also thanked the community for its ongoing support.
“As the city’s first city plaza, I do truly believe this will be the people’s plaza,” said Breeze. “We hope this will be an annual event, that we will have many more other named events and just plain old lazy days here in the park.”
Council members Joe Callinan and Pam Stafford (Jake Mackenzie was absent) and Interim City Manager Dan Schwartz patiently waited for Breeze and vice-Mayor Gina Belfonte to make the ceremonial scissor cut, opening the plaza for the first time to the public.
“We had an excellent turnout as projected,” said Yatin Shah, publisher of The Community Voice. “There was a constant flow of people throughout the day. I talked to all the vendors and they were very pleased.”
Rohnert Park Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Roy Gugliotta said, “I thought it was great. The two things I took away from it was the whole experience is what the community needed, it was just magical and there was just a wonderful energy there. I think people had a lot of fun and it was a nice showcase for businesses, too, so it was the best of both worlds.” He said an event like this was exactly what the city needed to open the park and it was what the chamber needed to pull the community together.
Emceed by The Community Voice’s Nicolas Grizzle, live entertainment was performed on a stage set up in the center of the plaza where several bands of different genres played throughout the day.
Shala Pace of Rohnert Park walked past a line vendors as her three young sons sporting fireman hats and looking excited. “I think it looks like it’d be a great downtown,” she said. “I can see myself coming here with my kids playing and seeing the fountain.” Then she was off in search of another balloon for one of her sons. “But maybe more balloons for next year’s event?” she said with a smile.
Chess for Kids from Santa Rosa set up a table of chessboards and pieces and had a regular flow of people in the kids area. President and founder Jolie Cook said she couldn’t even guess how many kids played chess that day, there were so many. Her business is based in Santa Rosa but she gives classes all over the county except for Rohnert Park. “We really want to bring chess to Rohnert Park.”
She said she was trying to find enough kids to start a class in RP and after Family Fun Day, now has a running list. She’s hoping to start at the local Boys and Girls Club and possibly at the schools in the near future.
Sahouria Pediatric Dentistry in RP also had a booth set up. Nicole Tore sat in the booth that day, offering people games, a toothbrush timer and a white smile. “I’m really glad (it) was put on, it was really cool for the community,” she said. “We actually got quite a number of new patients and saw many of our current patients as well. We’ve also had a lot of people calling saying they saw us at Family Fun Day and want to set up an appointment.”
With 32 local vendors it didn’t seem to make a difference if the businesses were similar. RP dentist George Malkemus had a booth set up as a silver sponsor and had the same response as Sahouria.
Shah said he heard stories like these from everyone he spoke with and says it’s definitely happening again next year. He estimates over 1,000 people walked through the gates Saturday.
“It’s all about the community and everyone seemed to be having a good time.”
Currently, there are discussions happening over possibly having a winter Family Fun Day some time in either October or November.