Setting a Course for Fun!

June 18, 2011

Times-Leader

Matt Hughes

RiverFest is back, bigger than ever, and this year it’s being held at one of top 10 waterfront parks in the world.

The River Common was recently awarded a Project Honor Award from The Waterfront Center, beating out waterfront projects in major cities such as Chicago and San Francisco and in nations as far flung as the United Kingdom and China, Luzerne County Flood Protection Authority Director Jim Brozena announced at the opening of RiverFest.

Brozena said project consultants Sasaki Associates of Watertown, Mass. entered the project in the contest held by The Waterfront Center, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that assists waterfront communities to make the wisest use of their urban waterfronts.

Brozena said he learned in November that the River Common had been selected as one of 10 prize winners, but “there was no more appropriate time to announce this award then at RiverFest.”

“For us to be selected speaks volumes for the success of this project, for the designers and for this community,” Brozena said, adding that “when they looked at the different projects they had set criteria that they used, and when they saw our project they added a sixth category; degree of difficulty.”

The park had the unique challenge of attracting people to the river while simultaneously enhancing flood control measures, he said, but with the support of the community, local business leaders and former U.S. Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski’s consistent earmarking of funding, the project was realized.

Kanjorski, on hand for the opening ceremony, said that without the commitment of local leaders, in addition to his own efforts, the levee-raising project would have only a few feet of earth to the top of the levees.

“The federal government, the state government, the county government have done everything they can do,” Kanjorski said. “The success of this project is up to the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania.”

Though the event’s opening ceremony was bookended by brief rain storms, many of those people turned out to open RiverFest Friday evening, including about 200 who paddled from West Pittston to Wilkes-Barre in the first of three river sojourns planned for this weekend.

Performances by George Wesley, Don Shappelle and opening night headliner MiZ and community art programs highlighted the soft opening of RiverFest Friday.

“We’re now big enough that we’re drawing musicians and entertainers that can be seen at major venues across the country,” said River Common Director of Programming and Outreach Karl Borton. “It started 12 years ago with 50 to 100 people; now it’s grown into a festival that draws over 5000.”

RiverFest aims to delight the eyes as well as the ears.

Entries in a children’s art contest sponsored by Pennsylvania American Water were on display, and artist Jan Lokuta helped children paint a community mural.

The mural, outlined by Lokuta, pictured the mountains of the western Wyoming Valley seen from near the Wyoming Valley mall, a scene most of us should be familiar with but might not be.

“We’re doing these to open the kids’ eyes to the beauty all around them… because you won’t want to preserve anything that you don’t care about, and you won’t care about something you’re not familiar with,” Lokuta said.

This year, RiverFest is also expanding into Wilkes-Barre’s downtown by linking up with the Third Friday Art Walk series hosted by local galleries.

The Wyoming Valley Art League and Russian-born artist Irina Krawitz held an opening at the Downtown Arts complex on South Franklin Street, a block from the River Common.

If you go RiverFest continues today from noon to 9:30 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with live music, fishing, and art activities. New this year, dragon boat training will take place today and races will take place Sunday.

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