Creekwood Community Fair

The Creekwood Community Fair is a collaborative effort that has three goals. First, to connect directly with our schools neighborhood. Second, to support a cause with a local connection and purpose. Third, to provide some support for our own instrumental music program.

We serve the first goal by working with local businesses to provide goods and services at the fair as well as planning the event with a host elementary school, neighborhood watch representative, our instrumental music parent association, and student representatives from both school sites involved. We have intentionally moved the event off of our high school campus to reach more directly into the community. We also invite local non-profits and businesses that are either directly in our neighborhood, or serve the neighborhood. This has included everything from food trucks to county health and human services, and to even a local veterinary clinic.

The second purpose is supported by selected a different charity to support. This year we selected the Valley Children’s Hospital because of the work they did in healing a young elementary student at the host site. We then promoted that selection with the vendors, community organizations, and local paper to make sure to create a purposeful buzz.

Thirdly, we have the instrumental music program students perform for the attendees. We provide about two hours of live music that is geared towards a fair audience. The program benefits from some of the profits, but a majority goes towards the charity as our goal is to use music to support our community.

Our target audience is the Creekwood Neighborhood and the students that are served by Johansen High School. The portion of town is a high density of lower socioeconomic and a majority-minority community. Our focus is to get families out to experience the neighborhood in a positive manner.

The process begins by establishing a date with the host elementary site. Then we have early planning and job breakdown meetings in October/November with as many planning stakeholders as possible. The principal and myself then continually check in to see progress in various tasks. In February and March there are major meetings where we begin to focus on layout and attending vendors and organizations. In late April or very early May we do a site walk through to make sure all of the leading stakeholders understand the layout and roles to be had in setting up and running the event on the day of.

Throughout all of the year our student leadership team is working on volunteers from various clubs and sports to help run games for students. We have parents working to get vendors to sign up and have a booth. Each stakeholder has an area they are responsible for confirming attendees.

Waters for performers and volunteers: 40.00
Candy for game awards: 20.00
Supplies for raffle prizes: 40.00

The project has grown a lot over the last 7 years. Originally we held it at the park adjacent to the elementary school, but there was no bathroom facility and we were limited on our visibility with the community. The benefit was that we established good neighborhood watch connections and a good relationship with the police and fire departments.

A big point of growth happened last year when we moved to be at the elementary site and worked with one of the other academies at the high school. This gave us a blue print for expanding. So this year we were able to expand the event to be a more full fair, even without the large scale help of the other academy.

The biggest struggle remains marketing and getting even more members of the community to the event. We had over 150 people attend this year, which was a jump of 50 plus from the previous year. We believe now that we have pictures and evidence of success with a visible donation and purpose we are going to be able to increase attendance. All those in attendance had great things to say about the event so we know we are heading in the right direction towards achieving our three goals.

We measure the success by increasing the community turnout, community involvement (vendors, organizations, etc.), and the amount of money we are able to donate locally – which this year raised to $500.

The biggest change this year was creating focus areas for each stakeholder to focus on. This allowed us to better utilize marketing that was school based and use connections within the community earlier in the process and be able to have a better plan.

The biggest impact is often seen for our program when we march around the neighborhood in the winter time to play music and ask for donations. We are often getting comments from the neighborhood that they love seeing us around and are so proud and thankful. It has also become a great joy to have been doing this just long enough that parents and students are entering the high school program having experienced the event from the other side. Their joy in helping the neighborhood is inspiring.

Most of all, though, it has been the strong relationship we have been able to build with non-band families. One of the loudest cheerers of the band is a neighborhood watch leader who has two sons who both never took music with me as their teacher. She will come find me at events and talk up the program to all those she can. It is those supporters, as there are plenty like her, that allow a program with little financial resources to gain campus and community support for bigger endeavors that are otherwise out of reach for our students.

The dream is never too big, the goal is never too grand, but the planning must be realistic to be successful. You must also think of longterm growth for success and not of a singular day to rule them all. We have worked hard as a team to make this event grow and as a result we have created lasting relationships that will make this purposeful event outlast myself, my current students, and the site administrations. The purpose is not to promote your band, but to promote the community through your band.