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Continued from Episode 20 featuring Spring City events, Public Relations Specialist, Anne Marie Van Casteren, chats with City staff to talk about a new and exciting event called Spring Fest, that will help celebrate the start of the Spring season with egg hunts, face painting, lawn games, a petting zoo and even a green market with fresh produce, flowers, locally made products, recycling activities and educational booths to promote sustainability in conjunction with Earth Month. Check out more of our upcoming City events by visiting www.myboca.us.CONNECT WITH US? Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BocaRatonCity/? Twitter: https://twitter.com/CityBocaRaton? Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/citybocaraton/? Nextdoor: https://nextdoor.com/agency-detail/fl/boca-raton/city-of-boca-raton/? Website: https://www.myboca.us/Ep. 21 - SpringFest Transcript[Upbeat theme music plays]Anne Marie: Hi everyone, and welcome to Boca Behind the Scenes, a get to know you podcast where we get to talk to city staff to get details about new programs, events and some projects that they're working on. My name is Anne Marie Van Casteren, and I’m the Public Relations Specialist for the city, and I'm really happy to be back as your host today. On this episode of Boca Behind the Scenes, we're going to be talking about some upcoming spring events, a fun and exciting new event called SpringFest. So today on the show will be hearing from Oyuki Poletz, our Programs Services Librarian. Oyuki welcome again, I know you've been a veteran on the show, so glad to have you back. And Emily Petford, our Community Events Specialist, this is your first time on the show so welcome, glad to have you. So if you want to get started, just introduce yourselves their roles at the city and how long have you been here and what you guys currently do.Oyuki: Well my name is Oyuki again. I'm the Program Services Librarian and I've been with the city for 11 years. One year as a part-timer and then 10 years as a full-time librarian. I started as a children's librarian, so this program something dear and near to my heart, and I oversee just a wide range of programs at the library from adults to children and special events as well.Anne Marie: Very cool.Emily: My name’s Emily Petford. I'm the Community Event Specialist for the city, and I've been here since last June. I did start as a part-timer and then I moved up to the Specialist, which is full time. So, I had the pleasure of working with Monika, and we not only continue to grow the events that we have already had in the past. We've also made new events and we're really excited to talk about them.Anne Marie: Awesome, glad to have you both on the show again. As if we don't already have so many amazing events taking place throughout the city all year long, we now have SpringFest coming up, which is a brand-new event to help celebrate the start of the Spring season. So, Emily, would you like to tell everybody more about the event, what it is, what’s it about, where, when and all those fun facts?Emily: Of course. So, we have this new even. We've titled it SpringFest and that's exactly what it is. It's a spring time festival and we really created it because there was a demand for something to do in the spring time, some event. There's a lot of families, a lot of younger families, that have moved to Boca Raton in the past 10 years or so and that’s what they really wanted. So, what we're doing is we are going to be at Spanish River Park on A1A and essentially there are three sections of the park. So SpringFest will take up the entire southernmost section, and the other two sections will be for parking. So, what we have is an entire day from 10 AM to 3 PM of awesome spring time activities. There are egg hunts for different age groups, there are five bands that are going to be on stage, we have Easter bunny photos, we have mermaid photos, which is a nice addition. We have face painting, we even have a petting zoo. So really there's a lot to do for the kids, but not just for the kids, we have an artisan market. So, what we’ll have are people with flowers, plants, teas, honey, a lot of handmade crafts, so it’s something for everybody. And also, April is Earth Month, so we have an Earth Month zone, and we have worked with the city’s Sustainability Department and they brought in a lot of organizations and they're going to be coming in and doing like gardening demonstrations and handing out information and really educate the public on how to live a more sustainable life. And another thing that we did is, of course, we are also going to have to food truck vendors there and they are taking the initiative to be sustainable and getting on the bandwagon of no straws, and no Styrofoam and everything so we’re making as many efforts as we can to really focus on the Earth Month as well.Anne Marie: Very cool. So, what about parking? Admission? Stuff like that. Where can people park?Emily: So, admission is totally free, and parking is also free. So, there are three sections of Spanish River Park, as I mentioned, we will be taking up the southernmost section for SpringFest, and the other two sections will be reserved for parking.Anne Marie: What about if you're a vendor that would like to participate in SpringFest? Do they contact you guys directly? Is there some sort of application that they have to fill out?Emily: We actually do have applications. You can go to myboca.us/specialevents to learn more information. And if you do want to go directly to the vendor application we have two applications. If you would like to be a vendor at our artisan market you can go to bit.ly/bocaspringfest. And if you’re a food vendor you can go to bit.ly/springfestfood.Anne Marie: And you can find all this information like you said on the website, you guys have a Facebook, all social media.Emily: We do, we have a Facebook if you want to go to Facebook.com/bocaratonspecialevents and we also have our full-day schedule on there as well, so you can plan ahead.Anne Marie: Awesome. Well it sounds like a really exciting event. I will definitely be there, so I'm looking forward to it. Again, for more information about the events you can visit the City special event page on the website as well as the Know Before You Go newsletter. I'm not sure listeners if you do not receive these emails they're really great in keeping you up to date on what's going on with our larger city events and provides you all the information that Oyuki and Emily spoke about. Let’s you know times, dates, location, parking information, safety information, you name it. So, if you would like to sign up, please visit our City Connection page on our website. And on a side note, I know that you know with the month of April leading into this and all of our larger city events, we are really pushing for sustainability within our community. So, I know at both events it was mentioned that the Mobile Aqua Refreshing Station that our Utility Services Department actually built, it's called the MARS buggy or the MARS water unit, will be popping up at all of our larger events so be sure that you bring your canteens, reusable water bottles. It provides clean, cold, free, fresh city water, very very cold so it will keep you refreshed so you know make sure that you do bring that with you. But I want to thank you ladies again so much for being on the show and for all the information that you provided, and I wish you both very successful events.[Upbeat theme music plays]Oyuki and Emily: Thank you, Anne Marie.Anne Marie: So just to recap, the very first SpringFest will be taking place at Spanish River Park on A1A on April 6th from 10 AM to 3 PM. For more information, you can follow the Boca Raton Special Events on Facebook or visit our website at www.myboca.us. Thank you all again for listening to Boca Behind the Scenes.[Upbeat theme music fades out] See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.