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JAMESTOWN – Residents and visitors to Jamestown have a lot to look forward to this year with several family-friendly events already taking shape.
Patrick Smeraldo, Owner and Director of Collaborative Children’s Solutions, announced there will be four events held during the year, totaling up to seven days and nights of entertainment and fireworks.
“Locations will always be in downtown Jamestown, we’re trying to utilize some spaces down there and promote people coming to Jamestown,” says Smerado. “And more of a festival-like atmosphere for the rest of the year.”
The first event will be the “End of School/Hello Summer” festival on June 24th. Smeraldo says it will be in two locations, downtown and by the local ballpark park. From noon to four, the event filled with children’s activities will be downtown.
Smeraldo hopes the event will encourage children to stay busy over the summer, and get back to pre-pandemic activities and socialization.
“All of the agencies and clubs and service providers that hope to have children involved in their activities. For example, J soccer, any summer camps, anything school related, they’re looking to gain a kid audience for the summer. I’m looking to put all of the kids in one area to gather at the end of school so they can sign up to stay busy all over summer,” says Smeraldo.
The event will then move to Russell Diethrick, Jr. Park for a Tarp Skunks baseball game. The group will also host Christmas in July, from July 22nd to the 23rd.
“We hope to have a Fat Friday evening. Once again, hopefully be at the Tarp Skunks game, with a fireworks show to end the evening that night to partner with them,” explains Smeraldo. “Then on Saturday we hope to be up in Jamestown to do some kids events. We’ve talked about three on three basketball races, we’ve talked about color runs and things like that to bring some events and some sidewalk chalk and some music to work with the downtown businesses selling their sandwiches or whatever to create a vibe downtown.”
Smeraldo emphasized how collaboration is key, which is how he organized last year’s holiday parade.
“We’ve had review after review after review about the parade. How great it was and it was awesome, it was awesome to work with the city,” says Smeraldo. “And it was because of how cooperative the city was, from the mayor down to department heads to city employees, the best in the business. It was very easy to work with them, which made it very easy to come back and do this.”
The owner is hoping small businesses downtown will flourish during the event, and that it will entice visitors to return to experience what Chautauqua County has to offer.
Though the events are only in their preliminary stages of planning, any vendors or community members looking to be a part of the events can join the groups Facebook page, email, or visit the website.
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