KNAP-IN WAS A BLAST FROM THE PAST! by Marianne Marcoux
Kudos to the Silver River Museum folks, the Park staff, and the many volunteers who managed this event and engaged over 3500 visitors this past weekend! Officially known as the Silver River Knap-In and Prehistoric Arts Festival, this is the largest event of its kind in the southeast. Flint Knapping, which is the art of recreating ancient stone tools like spear points and arrowheads, attracts artisans from across the country to demonstrate making stone tools, pottery, traditional bows and arrows, hide tanning, shell carving, fire making and more. We are especially grateful to our team of volunteers, coordinated by Cassie Rippel, who set up and ‘tabled’ the event all day Saturday and Sunday. And many of these Friends Member-Volunteers* also helped out the Park and Museum staff with all that is involved putting on this kind of event from parking cars to driving trams to demonstrating at the atlatl range. We actually hosted visitors at two tables selling t-shirts, merchandise like our magnets, stickers, and patches, as well as promoting the Drawing of Chance for a Park Cabin Getaway and the upcoming Online House Auction. The two nights in one of the Park’s beautiful rustic cabins along with Glass Bottom Boat tickets and the rental of two canoes was a major attraction. Visitors happily placed their money in our Glass Bottom Boat donation box. This Drawing of Chance was the brainchild of Cassie and Marianne and will continue until its winner is announced Sunday March 6 at the end of Springsfest. Mary and Craig Baggs, our marketing team extraordinaire, also added to our tabling efforts a bean bag toss game to engage the young at heart who ‘won’ a giveaway prize. And, we feel especially proud of the launch of our Square terminal device allowing us to easily process credit card payments even when at outdoor offline events. Thanks go to MJ for bringing us into the 21st century! We also added new members to our Friends organization. In fact, when all is totaled, we made over $1200 at Knap-In with zero expenses attributed to the event. Now that’s the way to roll! *If you are a member of the Friends of Silver Springs State Park but have yet to become a bonafide Park Volunteer, please consider doing this. We really could use the help and it’s always a lot of fun working together and engaging the public! For directions go to the Member tab on our website www.TheFriendsOfSilverSprings.org . |
