The Northwood-Four Corners Civic Association is sponsoring its Second Annual Rachel Carson Meadow Festival on 16 May.  Although the Montgomery County Parks and Planning Department has closed our recreation center through the end of the Fiscal Year, they have relented in letting us hold our planned Festival.

You can enter the park from the north on Southwood Avenue at Edgewood Avenue (only 16 parking spaces in the lot), from the south side on University Boulevard at Brunett Avenue, or from the west off Royalton Road (parking on the street).  There is overflow parking at the Myosenji Temple at the corner of University Blvd. and Brunett Ave., but walking to the park is recommended.  See Schedule and Map.

Highlights

• Welcome Spring with performances by the Washington Revels (see further details below).  You can even join in the fun of creating a community performance event.  Learn songs and dances, help make props and decorations, or just be in on the action.  (Although you were to register by May 12th in order to join the performers, please do so even though it’s after May 12 if you’d still like to participate.  There may still be room!)
• Pitting of the Pooches.  Compete in the NFCCA- sponsored fun family dog show (last year’s event pictured above).  Which dog most resembles its owner?
• Meadowscapes.  Plan your own meadow after watching the video, Why Plant a Meadow Instead of a Lawn?  NFCCA resident and author Catherine Zimmerman will discuss her new meadow book.
• Displays and Demonstrations provided by local environmental organizations (see list below)
• A Sense of Wonder.  Enjoy a video performance of the play about the Life of Rachel Carson
• Hug the 180 year-old walnut tree!
• Kids Can Create Nature-Based Art.  NFCCA resident, artist, and art instructor Sarah Stecher will show you how.
• Kids Can Run Soccer Drills.  NFCCA resident Alecks Beltran will coach the event.

We need volunteers to help with logistics of the day (e.g., showing folks where to park, helping exhibitors find their tables, and so on.)  If you can help out for an hour or so, please contact NFCCA President Carole Barth by phone at 301.524.5027 (cell) or email.)

Come Revel!  A Festival Within the Rachel Carson Meadow Festival

The Washington Revels, a near neighbor to Northwood-Four Corners, will be participating in the May 16th Rachel Carson Meadow Festival, and we invite you to join us to be part of the fun!

On a Revels Festival Day you can picnic and perform with Washington Revels in the midst of the NFCCA’s celebration of your neighborhood park and Rachel Carson Meadow.  We gather, rehearse, and perform a “mini-Revels” all in one day, no auditions or experience necessary!  Come by yourself, with a friend, or bring the whole family — all ages are welcome.  Informal picnic at noon; rehearse from 1:00–4:00 p.m.; public performance at 4:00 p.m.

Register by May 12 on the Revels website to select your performance or production activity.  Everyone 13 and older can choose to sing in the chorus, dance English country-style, act in the Mummer’s play, play in the band, craft props and decorations, help with setup/sign-in/organization, serve as photographers/videographers, or lend a hand with schlepping/assembling large props, etc.  Children ages 6-12 may either learn and perform their own set, or work on props and decorations.  A parent must accompany children ages 6-7 during activities, and parents are responsible for supervising children ages 5 and under.  We hope to be able to accommodate all who register, but space is limited, particularly for those who want to dance.

At 1:00 p.m., all learn 2-3 songs that everyone may sing.  We then separate into activity groups to prepare.  After a snack break, we review everything and put it all together.  At 4:00 p.m., we have the Grand Procession and perform our mini-Revels.

Can’t come for the full afternoon?  We’ll have a participatory Maypole Dance (above) throughout the afternoon.  And join the audience at 4:00 p.m., when we share our performance with local residents at the Rachel Carson Meadow Festival.  For more information, see the flyer.

“If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life.”

—Rachel Carson, A Sense of Wonder

Special Presentations

Why Plant a Meadow Instead of a Lawn, a video by Catherine Zimmerman.  Zimmerman, an award-winning director of photography, has over 30 years of experience in documentary filmmaking with an emphasis on education and environmental issues.  She is also a certified horticulturist and landscape designer accredited in organic land care.  She hopes that her Meadow Project will help start the movement toward making natural landscapes the new landscaping norm.  See further details at The Meadow Project.

A Sense of Wonder.  When pioneering environmentalist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring in 1962, the backlash from her citics forced her into the role of controversial public figure.  Using many of Miss Carson’s own words, actress Kaiulani Lee embodies this woman in a documentary style film which depicts Carson in the final year of her life.  Struggling with cancer, Carson recounts with both anger and humor the attacks by the chemical industry, the government, and the press as she focuses her limited energy to get her message to Congress and the American people.  Beautifully shot in HD by Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell-Wexler at Carson’s cottage in Maine, the film is an intimate portrait of America’s most successful advocate for the natural world.  [55 min., 2008, Sense of Wonder Productions, LLC.]

Where Do the Children Play? examines the disappearance of play and nature from the daily lives of children.  Free play in the natural world, which the baby-boomer generation and their parents took for granted, is something that many children today do not know.  Sprawl, congestion, and endless suburban development across America have moved children further and further into isolation.  This film explores this new environmental impact on children’s mental and physical health and their development.  The “average home range” for suburban children has shrunk from a radius of one mile to 550 yards in two decades.  And while most kids used to walk or ride a bus to school, this has dramatically changed.  A mere ten percent walk or ride bicycles today, and increasingly the rest — already more than half — are driven to school, furthering the isolation.  Add to this the parental pressure to succeed, kids’ over-scheduled lives, a media-driven fear of strangers, and a soaring divorce rate, and experts see serious potential for disaster.  The film is told largely in the voices of children and combines research of urban planners, health experts, educators, and environmentalists to better explain the realities children today face in urban centers, suburbs, and rural areas.  Where Do the Children Play? provokes debate and discussion and leaves the viewer with an increased understanding and compassion for the modern lives of children.  [56:46 min., 2007, Michigan Television.]

The Schedule

All times are subject to change.

Time	Event	Place
1:00-2:30 p.m.	Pitting of the Pooches	Meadow
1:30-2:00 p.m.	Soccer Clinic	Soccer Field
1:30-2:30 p.m.	Video: Where Will the Children Play?	Rec Center
2:30-3:00 p.m.	Video/Talk: Why Plant a Meadow?	Rec Center
3:00-4:00 p.m.	Video: A Sense of Wonder	Rec Center
4:00-4:30 p.m.	Revels Performance Welcoming Spring	Meadow

“There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature — the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.”

—Rachel Carson, A Sense of Wonder

Confirmed Displays

(As of 12 May 2010)

Group
Rachel Carson Council
Northwood Trail Project
Neighbors of Northwest Branch
RainScaping (MoCo)
Friends of Sligo Creek
Weed Warriors (MoCo)
The Oaks
Clean Currents’ Green Neighborhood Effect Program
Mike Lennet
Nature Art

PLEASE NOTE:  Due to MoCo Department of Parks regulations, no sales are allowed in the park.  Therefore, there will be no refreshments, and exhibitors are not permitted to sell any items, although they may take orders.

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© 2010 NFCCA.