Old North Durham Park - 724 Foster Street - Behind Central Park School for Children
Saturday, 3 May 2008
11 A.M. to 5 P.M. - Rain or Shine
Free Admission - Music, Dance, Food and Games! - Save the date!

Parent Participation

Our biggest and best festival ever!

We hope everyone connected with the school in any way will join us for this ambitious endeavor. Please ask grandparents, aunts, uncles, friends and neighbors to come to our Strawberry Festival and work with you. It's such a great way to help the school and its fun. Together we can make the 2008 Strawberry Festival spectacular!

Sponsors - Send potential names now! If you know of anyone who might be a possible sponsor for the Strawberry Festival, please tell us about them. We will be very nice to our sponsors.

Download a form in Microsoft Word format to learn about sponsoring the Strawberry Festival
Click here to View a page with details on Advertising specs in jpeg format

Pre-Sale Delivery - Send potential customer names - on the Friday before the festival we will deliver strawberry shortcakes to businesses that order and pre-pay for a minimum of 20 shortcakes. If your business or place of employment might be interested, please provide contact information. The sooner we can get this information, the better we can prepare for this new fundraising component of the Festival.

Download a pre-sale order form in Microsoft Word format

Festival Day - 3 May 2008 - work 2 shifts - to get everything done, we need for every family to arrange to support Festival Day by working 2 two-hour shifts. Please work one two-hour shift with your child's teeacher and one two-hour shift with one of the all-school booths selling food, tickets, etc.

Two Shifts

1. Sign up for a 2 hour shift with your child's class SF activity. Each class w3ill sponsor an activity and volunteers will provide the manpower. See your child's teacher for more information. If you have several children, ask extended family, friends and neighbors to help. They will most likely have a really good time and want to do it again next year.

2. Sign up for a 2 hour shift in one of the all-school booths selling food, tickets, etc. These sign up sheets will go up in the CPSFC foyer two weeks before the festival. Friends and family can help with this as well.

Planning - Serve on one planning committee, sign up now!

Planning makes the difference between a good festival and a great festival. We hope every CPSFC family will participate on one of the Strawberry Festival Planning Committees. The committees are listed below.

Download a form in Microsoft Word format to sign up for a committee - you may fax the form to the school

Committees

Steering Committee: Great place for creative ideas and problem solving. Vicky Patton would love to have two co-chairs

Activities: Works closely with teachers to coordinate children's activiities. Chanel Carrell is in charge of this committee

Clean up: We will have TROSA volunteers to do much of the work buthe effort needs some coordinators to make sure that things are put back where they belong and that the Park is totally clean and clear by 7 p.m., it's two hours of intense work.

Donations: Once we have a comprehensive list of all the supplies we need for SF, this committee goes to work finding businesses that will donate the supplies. This committee will do most of its work in March. Getting donations for the supplies we need greatly increases our fundraising potential. This committee needs some new energy and coordination.

Entertainment: Arranges "Big Stage" entertainment and arranges for stage management, sound system, etc. Bands play for free but want to be connected to our website and be able to sell their CDs. Liz Melvin has already started working on this but needs helpers.

Food: Work is done through food-specific committees

Strawberries: Secure 150 gallons of strawberries and set up to wash and slice them. Would like to get more organic strawberries and have more strawberries donated. Tonya Queen has worked on this for several years and knows all!

Shortcakes: Choosing shortcakes, getting 1500 for Friday and Saturday. Deciding how to serve and what environmentallly friendly bowls/plates to use. Work with strawwberry shortcake booth committee. Tonya Roberts is choosing shortcakes. Kathey Kirschmann knows how to run the booth. Kathy needs two co-chairs and will need to transfer her knowledge as she "graduates" this year.

Cocolate-dipped strawberries: Choosing 500 berries for dipping ang getting the right chocolate sauce. Shelly Gabriel "graduated" last year but will share knowledge with new co-chairs.

Smoothies: Peggy Force started this crowd favorite and Kathy Connor has been co-chair. They need helpers.

TROSA: We need one or two committed people to work with TROSA Deli to create a menu that works for the public as well as for CPSFC vegetarian and vegan families.

Friday Delivery Pre-sales: New committee. We are pre-selling and delivering strawberry shortcakes on Friday afternoon. This will hopefully be a big money-maker for us.

Presentation: This is so important! This committee decides what the overall festival will look like even with a chance of rain. Viola Bestmann, Margo Hausmann and Ann Pirani did amazing things last year. With more helpers, the sky's the limit.

Publicity: Marketing for SF - most of th work is done in March and April. Contacting media outlets, creating yaqrd signs, etc. Some new energy here woudl be wonderful!

Set Up: Set up happens quickly on Friday afternoon, May 2 and Saturday morning before the festival. Planning for all contingencies is critical. Many hands make this fast work. Aziz Carrell has made this job easier with his layout plans for the Festival. Scott Brennan knows how to set up but needs lots of willing hands.

Sponsors: Sponsors make it possible to raise larger sums for CPSFC. The committee arranges perks and cares for sponsors. Vicky Patton can use help in all aspects of this work.

Strawberry Guide: This committee works closely with Publicity to create the 12+ page guide to SF activities, entertainment, donors and sponsors. Mary Wible-Brennan knows how to do this. More writers, editors, etc. are needed.

Tickets: Pre-sale and day of sale. Tonya Roberts knowws how to do all of this. Needs helpers.

Volunteers: Strawberry Festival requires 100s of volunteers. Coordinating all of these people requires a committee that is committed to using volunteers wisely. Deanna Ovenden has mastered the sign-up process.

All Festival proceeds go toward improvements in the Old North Durham Park. For more information on plans and how you can be involved, call Vicky Patton, 682-1200.