Eleven vendors set up shop at Youth Legacy Duplessis Park in the Gonzales area Saturday for the first Autumn Festival in the Park, and by the end of the day, every single one of them had sold out. Organizer Chad Brown said the turnout held strong even with the LSU-Auburn football game kicking off at 11 a.m. that same morning, a scheduling conflict that could have easily kept families home in front of the television instead.
A Festival Born From an Easter Market
According to weeklycitizen.com, all 11 participating vendors sold out during the event, a detail Brown reported as organizer. Per The Advocate, Brown said the idea for the festival first took shape during the spring Hippity Hoppity Easter Market, and he wanted to build a local community event during cooler weather that would support small businesses while celebrating autumn. The Advocate reports that Ascension Parish Recreation and Bearded Events hosted the all-day gathering, which included roughly 80 arts and crafts vendors and food trucks, a chili cook-off with proceeds designated for the Ascension Parks Foundation, and inflatables, games and children's activities.
The event marked the first annual fall festival at the Gonzales park, held Saturday, per the same Advocate account. Duplessis Park sits along Highway 621 in the Gonzales area, as confirmed by weeklycitizen.com's coverage of several Ascension Parish festivals held that same autumn weekend, including Autumn on the Avenue in Louisiana Square and the annual Boots on the Bayou music festival at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center.
Small Businesses Find a Foothold
For vendors like Heather Calvaruso, who lives in Prairieville, events at Duplessis Park have become a real boost for her three-dimensional printing business. The Advocate reports Calvaruso started printing 3D toys for her children a couple of years ago before turning it into Boujee by the Bayou, which sells 3D toys, trinkets, decorations and LSU-themed 3D necklaces. She described the Ascension Parish small-business community as close-knit, telling the paper that community members and vendors request 3D printing from one another and support each other in turn. At the festival, toddlers Zaivion Warner, 2, and Zamir Warner, 4, browsed toys with Jessica Bouton at the Boujee by the Bayou booth, according to The Advocate.
Duplessis Park events give local small-business owners a chance to meet community members and find new customers, and the Autumn Festival in the Park drew vendors from outside Ascension Parish entirely, the same report notes. Among them was Kelly Roussell, who brought her mobile romance bookstore, Lattes & Love Letters, to Saturday's festival.
A Bookmobile Born From Childhood Dreams
Roussell, a Gramercy resident, started Lattes & Love Letters and has quickly made it a favorite stop for romance book lovers throughout the River Parishes, according to lobservateur.com. She works as a flight respiratory therapist, and the mobile model lets her bring romance books directly to festivals and markets rather than waiting for customers to find a storefront. The Advocate describes her bookstore as one traveling between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, selling romance titles alongside cold brew coffee, including New Orleans-based Try Me Coffee cold brew, with genres spanning contemporary, academia, Black romance, urban romance and romantasy.
Roussell has operated the business for a year and uses social media to let customers know where the bookmobile will turn up next, per The Advocate. She recalled wanting to run a bookmobile as a child and said people now drive out just to see her and the books in person. Lobservateur.com notes that her events have attracted hundreds of book lovers, and she has said the work is also about making connections, supporting small businesses and growing together as a community. Roussell told The Advocate she hopes the bookmobile becomes a full-time career, and while she would like a brick-and-mortar bookstore someday, she believes fewer people visit such stores than they once did. “People love reading about experiencing love,” she said, per the same account.
What's Next at Duplessis Park
Youth Legacy Duplessis Park has hosted several holiday events and festivals over the past couple of years, and it now includes a newly opened fitness court among its recreational offerings, The Advocate reports. The park, located at 38103 Highway 621, held its grand-opening ribbon-cutting back in June 2023 and was built with a challenge course for people of all ages, according to weeklycitizen.com's earlier coverage of the opening. Its playground was designed to promote inclusion for people with disabilities in play and recreation, per struthersrecreation.com.
The next gathering at the park is already on the calendar. The Advocate reports the Christmas Stroll in the Park is scheduled for December 5, 2026, and will include holiday shopping, dog races, Cara's House pet adoptions and other activities focused on family pets.
