What do you get when you take an already great afternoon of healthy, family-oriented fun and combine it with a little opera and jazz? You get the Atlanta BeltLine Partnership’s fourth annual Washington Park Jamboree and Play Day – held this past Saturday at one of the city’s most historic parks – and what a phenomenal event it was! There was a special excitement in the air as this is the first time the festival has been held since the nearby Westside Trail opened to the public in September of last year.
Everyone celebrated Jamboree’s return to Washington Park for the fourth straight year!
The day’s activities got started at 2:00 pm with an amazing performance of Mozart’s The Magic Flute by The Atlanta Opera, the first performance in the new Belting on the BeltLine collaboration between ABP and TAO. Funded by a generous grant from The Home Depot Foundation and the Georgia Center for Nonprofits, this collaboration will bring additional pop-up opera performances throughout the year to locations along the Atlanta BeltLine. You can catch the next Belting on the BeltLine performance on Sunday, June 3 at our A Slice of Summer event at Skyline Park atop Ponce City Market.
When the opera ended, the day’s activities were just getting started. Trained coaches from Atlanta ContactPoint and some of the best instructors in ABP’s free fitness class program were on hand to lead fitness demonstrations and provide instruction to kids across a wide variety of sports like soccer, lacrosse, golf, football and more. Attendees were even treated to an incredible youth karate demonstration from Hidden Dojo!
As the Play Day activities continued, the growing crowd was treated to incredible jazz performances from Latrese Bush and Lil’ John and Friends, part of the Atlanta Jazz Festival’s Neighborhood Jazz Series, with Saturday’s Washington Park performances co-hosted by Atlanta City Councilmember Ivory Lee Young.
Atlanta BeltLine Partnership Executive Director Rob Brawner (with microphone) and Atlanta City Councilmember (District 3) Ivory Lee Young introduce Latrese Bush before her performance.
The following images of Lil’ John and Friends courtesy of Matt Alexandre Photography.
The Kaiser Permanente mobile health van was onsite to offer health screenings to attendees, and there was an active vendor market with representatives from local businesses and nonprofit organizations on hand to engage with residents. Here are just a few shots of the activity in the vendor market:
Face painting – always a popular stop at Jamboree!
The goats at the WEToursATL booth received A LOT of attention.
Plenty of healthy eating options and guidance was available at Jamboree.
The virtual reality goggles in the Atlanta Fulton County Public Library booth were a hit with the kids.
In what’s become a regular fixture, not only at Jamboree but at most every Atlanta BeltLine event, Atlanta Police Department Path Force officers were on hand, not only to help ensure the safety of attendees, but also to again demonstrate the incredible power of community-based policing. You saw examples of it time and again during the course of the afternoon.
Washington Park Jamboree and Play Day would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors. The Atlanta BeltLine Partnership sincerely thanks Kaiser Permanente of Georgia, the Morgens West Foundation and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta for bringing this year’s event to life and The Atlanta Opera and the Atlanta Jazz Festival for providing the great entertainment. We’d also like to thank the Washington Park Conservancy and the Washington Park Tennis Association for their help in spreading the word in their communities about our event. As always, much thanks to our longtime Play Day partner, Atlanta ContactPoint, engaging children and adults through the power of play.
Thanks to everyone for coming out to Washington Park on an unusually warm Saturday and for embracing the new musical components of our festival. We look forward to bringing you an even better Washington Park Jamboree and Play Day in 2019! Here’s a link to an album of some of the best photos from the day. Our next two events are A Slice of Summer and the Westside 5K/8K on July 14. Please consider supporting these events if you haven’t already done so!
