The second NOW! Festival starts this weekend, with a plethora of community events, workshops, and games that run from Sunday Nov. 16th to Saturday Nov. 22nd.
The first ever NOW! Festival debuted earlier this year, with free flowers, beach clean-ups, community dinners, flag football, and dozens of events designed to bring the community together.
This fall, the festival will take the enthusiasm and spirit of its first festival and add to it a longer period of planning. Organizer Morgan Fitzgibbons tells us the goal is to "co-create the best possible version of community for one extraordinary week."
A few of the many, many events happening are:
- A polar bear plunge at 8am this Sunday on Ocean Beach
- A live band silent disco with headsets from Silent Storm, taking place from 1:30-3:30pm on Sunday in the Panhandle playground area
- Crafting at the William McKinley Monument on Monday from 2-4pm
- Comedy at the Convent on Tuesday evening at 8pm
- Panhandle Pajama Cereal Party on Wednesday morning from 7:30-9am
- The Good Job Parade on Thursday from 3-6pm, where participants will give out gold stars and high fives to those who "toil in obscurity"
- Free Flower Friday. Flowers can be picked up from 1-2pm at the William McKinley monument
- Naam Yoga on Saturday from noon-1pm in the Panhandle
For a full list, you can peruse the highly diverse schedule here. You can also stay in the loop during the week by RSVPing on the Facebook event page.
The NOW! Festival event is not something that could happen without a committed team of volunteers, ranging from the graphic design for the posters to helping hands at each individual event. To get involved, you can email the team at nowfestsf [at] gmail [dot] com.
The next NOW! Panhandle Neighborhood Community Festival is tentatively being planned for late April 2015, to coincide with Earth Week, so start brainstorming ideas now(!) "We hold the space," Morgan told us. "It's really what people want to do with it."
