On June 22, 2022, a press conference was held at Griffin Park in Fall River to announce the return of "Summer Evenings in the Park." This initiative, a partnership between the Narrows Center, the City of Fall River, Bristol County Savings Bank, Viva Fall River, and CD Rec, aims to bring free, high-quality entertainment, arts, crafts, food, and groceries directly into city neighborhoods. Speakers highlighted the success of last year's events, which attracted hundreds of people and fostered community unity, especially after the isolation experienced during the pandemic. Mayor Paul Coogan and Patrick from the Narrows Center expressed their enthusiasm for the program, noting its expansion from four parks last year to eight parks this summer. The series is scheduled to kick off on July 6th at Griffin Park. Pat Murray of Bristol County Savings Bank announced a significant donation of $10,000 to support the events, emphasizing the bank's commitment to the community. Grace Gurling from CD Rec confirmed her agency's role in providing food, while Patty from Viva Fall River spoke about the events' ability to unite residents. Mark Conrad, president of the Corkiro neighborhood, thanked the city and partners for their continued engagement following a tragedy in Griffin Park the previous year, noting that the city's commitment had not faded. The speakers also emphasized that the events are largely volunteer-driven, ensuring that most of the funds raised go directly into food and entertainment, with minimal administrative costs. The overarching theme was the power of these events to bring people together, regardless of background, and celebrate what unites the community.
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Council
Public / Other
well good morning everybody welcome to the uh griffin park another beautiful park in the city of fall river uh narrow centers here with the city of fall river and bristol county savings bank and viva fall river um and cd rec to talk about we're bringing back summer evenings in the park this was a wildly successful event we did last year last year what we tried to do is we tried to bring what the
0:20narrows does every day right into the neighborhoods to the city of fall river we found that to be a really really successful concept we've done many events at the narrows that are free and we've always had a hard time attracting people from the neighborhoods of fall rivers so we thought last year coming out of covid we wanted to come right into the neighborhoods and make a real difference
0:39and we found these programs to be wildly successful we had hundreds of people at all these events and i'll just briefly tell a story uh mayor coogan uh we had met last year and there had been an incident at griffin park and we're talking about trying to do some good things and then we had a little event at the corki row club and uh bobby bailey was running it and he was like well
0:59we're going to talk about this and i got and i thought i was going last he said let's talk about these events and i said well we're going to try to bring some jazz and some food and some arts and crafts and the kid in the front row said to me that's a terrible idea nobody's going to come that same kid the night we had this griffin park came up to me and said i
1:15was dead wrong this was super fun we had a great time and this is kind of like a holistic event where people get to come from the neighborhoods hear live music participate arts and crafts we have cd recreation provide some fabulous food and we have a non-profit that will partner with us each week that will provide provide a free bag of groceries for every family come so it's a real feel-good event i think it makes
1:39people feel good we want to treat people who respect and we want to bring some high high-end entertainment right into the neighborhoods and i'd like to introduce paul coogan without the city's help we couldn't do any of this and paul and his staff have been absolutely fabulous paul thanks patrick um obviously we're here all here for the same reason today uh and you can't do anything with out our next speaker from
2:05bristol county savings the city of fall river the narrows this is a partnership to make fall river a better place to live we do these concerts in the summer i was probably one of the ones in the front row telling patrick this is a crazy idea also i'll raise my hand but again i love love love being proven dead wrong these things were exciting they were vibrant and there was a lot of
2:29activity if you get to come to one you'll see exactly what i mean between the spray art the games the food the music it's a great great event um we have a whole series of them we're going to hit eight parks this summer as opposed to doubling up on the four we did last year and we want people to come out to these things they're going to start next week july 6th right here in griffin park
2:51that'll be our kickoff and we'd love you all to come down and join us um but the person i want to introduce right now that is the one that is the driving force behind the financial side of it but their commitment to fall river is unwavering they help us with our christmas show they're helping us with our concerts in the park and they're here today to announce um how big their support is for
3:14this event uh pat murray from bristol county savings thank you mayor good morning everybody what a great day to be here in griffin park to kick off the the first event this year at this morning's press conference i'd like to take a couple of minutes just to recognize our team first of all with us today is michelle roberts and jeff bradley from our community relations department and then
3:42most importantly the people that work right here and live right here in fall river that represent bristol county savings every bank every single day first our fall river branch manager christine paradis our senior vice president commercial lending roger cabral and vice president and head of small business lending and government partnerships joan medeiros on behalf of everyone at the bank i want
4:08to say how proud we are to do our part to support the city and the narrow center for the arts effort to bring back the summer evenings in the park when you consider the feeling of isolation that many of us have experienced for the last couple of years in combination with money being especially tight lately because of the rising prices for essentials it's exciting to know that free quality
4:32entertainment for everyone to enjoy is going to literally kick off right here in a matter of a couple of weeks the bank gravitates towards these programs because we are a mutual community bank and believe that the neighborhoods are the stakeholders that we serve in fact our mission is to place a premium on being actively involved in the communities with our banks branch in downtown fall
4:58river we are always looking for ways to work together with the city the schools and local community organizations the narrows is a excellent example of that meeting and the growing needs of the population and to support the economy since 2000 the bank and its foundation has committed more than 10 million dollars to the south coast helping hundreds of community organizations and we are about to add to that today
5:29this is always my favorite part with a check of ten thousand dollars to support summer evenings in the park patrick mayor congratulations thank you pat certainly appreciate it yeah when they say these events are free they're not free this is great
6:00all right okay i do want to introduce um grace girling from cd rec uh without cd rex help they bring a whole team they bring the grill the food and a fabulous attitude as well thank you pat our agency is once again very happy to be participating in the summer evenings in the park it's a very exciting event and important that we have it and you know neighborhoods so folks can come out and
6:31they can walk they don't have to drive we all know that gas is very very high right now so um myself and my team are very happy to be a part of the the event and come on out have a nice juicy hamburger and hot dog and with a great smile so we're excited to be part of it thank you how about patty from uh beaver fall river hello um
7:04so there are many things that make fall river a great place to live and to visit and two of them are represented in this event series and that is our beautiful parks and our welcoming community i enjoy these events so much because it's an opportunity for people to go to each other's neighborhoods get to know each other and to realize that there's a lot more that unites us than divides us
7:24it's a great place to just come and listen to music and and i know my daughter enjoys it she's made a lot of friends throughout the city and i think that that's what this is about this event is about enjoyment and and just pure community engagement um we are honored beaver fall river is honored to be a part of this again and i hope this is an event series that continues for
7:42many years to come thank you so much and i'm going to hand it back off to oh i'm sorry let me introduce a very important person in this neighborhood he is the the corkiro neighborhood president mark conrad thank you patty really do appreciate everybody coming out today um pat i want to tell you something right now when we went through this horrible tragedy uh last year in may where we lost life here in griffin park
8:08um there's uh there was a big upswell the city rallied dramatically to be able to assist us in addressing that issue and again this is during the time of covet so there's a terrible thing actually happening here in corky row so we had those two big meetings and that's where patrick was out there we were talking about all these really great things but the sense was well all right everybody will respond and then it
8:29will fade away ferry i'm going to tell you right now you're proof that the city has not faded away that you're still extremely active not only here in corkiron in griffin park but by looking at the calendar throughout the city it's interesting to me again as i be an advocate not only for our community here but for the city as a whole the number of times people will say well gee whiz
8:52what's going on in fall river i said you're just not paying attention there's something going on all the time showing our city and how great it is this real soul of what we have and i'm deeply deeply appreciative of all the leadership that we're seeing all across the city uh cd rack again we're going to be working again another it's going to be another great summer and we're just
9:13going to see amazing things you can see how beautiful griffin park is so i can't tell you how much on behalf of the neighborhood association and all the residents of corkiro how deeply appreciative we are to you and that like i said you're not going away anytime soon thank you so much
9:33thanks everyone for coming i don't know if anyone's has any questions of anybody all right well we do we do eight events yes right so it's a little bit more than ten thousand for the whole for the whole thing but with the contribution from the city and the narrows to kind of make that all work yeah i mean volunteers everybody here um i would say just about everybody involved is a volunteer from the city
10:03people this is all after hours after five o'clock to the to the narrows volunteers who come in to people at cd rec and paddy's crew so it is a mostly volunteer driven thing all the money raised is really going into the food and the entertainment there is virtually no administrative costs on this event this is something we're super happy about so it's really cost effective and we're delivering right to people
10:33well yeah i mean i think these events nobody cares like who you voted for what color you are where you where you eat or anything like that people come out of these neighborhoods they come up uh they come and have a good time and i think patty rigo said it best there's a lot more that unites as it divides us and we're focusing on the uniting part strictly and i think these
10:51events are living proof of that that people get along fine different doesn't matter ethnicities ages people come and have a good time you