College Park Day connects city residents and UMD students

Bill’s Backyard BBQ, a barbecue company based in the D.C. area, serves carved meat at this year’s College Park Day.

The annual College Park Day festival offers fun, games and food for attendees, and this year, it also offered an opportunity to bridge the gap between long-term city residents and University of Maryland students.

“This is a great opportunity for the university and community to mix [and] mingle,” District 4 Councilman Alan Hew said. “This opens up that exchange of what there is on campus for the residents, so showing those assets here really helps bonding in the community.”

The festival, which took place this year from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, began six years ago, said Denise Seifried, the event manager.

Located in the parking lot on Paint Branch Parkway across from the College Park Metro Station, the festival set up with a 26-foot rock wall and a 25-foot spider tower and slide for kids. There were also about 10 University of Maryland organizations, a local brewery and vineyard, and booths with food.

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“We have a bunch of artists and craftsmen … some great food trucks,” Seifried said. “We’ve got two stages of live music with multiple acts. The Baltimore Oriole and the Baltimore Raven mascots are both here.”

While the day brings people in the community together, it’s also an opportunity for campus organizations to promote themselves and show what they have to offer, Hew said.

Sophomore Monica Albizo, a student ambassador for the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, said she and her peers have been doing a lot of promotion this year to show what kind of attractions the center offers. The Clarice generally hosts multiple performances a week, she said, and it’s the student ambassadors’ job to encourage more people to come.

“A lot of people on campus and in the area don’t know the variety of amazing performances that are at The Clarice and how accessible it is,” Albizo said.

This year’s College Park Day also attracted residents from neighboring towns. Anissa Sunday, Riverdale Park resident, came to the festival for the first time with her family.

“It’s exciting when you have events like this,” Sunday said. “I don’t think that people get together often enough in this area, so it’s nice to have these events.”

Even the planning process for the festival tends to bring the community together, Seifried said. The day’s events are executed by a planning committee that includes City Council members, community members, local businesses and the College Park Community Foundation, she said.

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The festival, which takes between six and eight months to plan, continues to grow every year, Seifried said. Planners had to relocate the festival to its current location last year to accommodate the growing number of attractions, and this year was the first in which there were two stages for live music.

“We’re always trying to draw students to come here to College Park Day,” Seifried said. “It’s bridging that [gap] between the community and college students, having them come together, getting them to know each other and understanding each other and having a great time.”