WaterFire Providence’s staff and volunteers had a busy weekend. We started with our annual Earth Day cleanup project in Waterplace Park. The good deeds continued on Sunday as WaterFire volunteers and staff participated in the 2nd Annual Get Gored for Good event benefiting the Amos House.
On Saturday, a cold and rainy New England spring morning greeted those who came out for the Partnership for Providence Park’s 2nd Annual Earth Day Spring Cleaning, and although we were soon soaked to the bone our spirits we never dampened. While the tide was favorable teams in boats piloted up and down the rivers of Providence removing tree branches, shopping carts, tires, and other large obstructions filling dumpsters to the brim donated by our friends at S.D.S Disposal, Inc . Teams also combed the edges of the river for litter; they helped to clean up both Waterplace Park and Memorial Park as well as the shorelines along South Water Street and around the Irish Famine Memorial. As the morning wore on and the water levels dropped our intrepid volunteers donned waders and continued to scour the river for trash. Our acting volunteer coordinator Andrea Ritter summed up the day with her Facebook post stating: “Mother Nature can’t keep our volunteers down! Thank you to everyone who weathered through the torrential down pouring rain to celebrate Earth Day with us. Your support and dedication go above and beyond our wildest imaginations!”
On Sunday, the weather was a little bit nicer as WaterFire’s team The Flamma-Bulls met in Union Plaza to get ready for the Get Gored for Good ‘Running of the Bulls’ fundraising event through downtown Providence. Unlike the famous running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain the bulls in Providence are actually members of the Providence Roller Derby teams who wear horned helmets and gore participants with red paint. After running (and some walking) the 2-mile course, dodging bulls, and picking up red beaded necklaces and roses from volunteers along the course we ended up at the Get Gored for Good after-party in Burnside Park. The after-party featured food from the Amos House Culinary Education Program, cold beers from Narraganset Beer, live music, a mechanical bull, and bouncy jousting. We all had a lot of fun and were extremely proud to have been able to have so much fun while helping to raise money for such a good cause.
Earth Day Cleanup 2014
Gored for Good 2014
Photographs by Tim Blankenship, Andrea Ritter, Laura Duclos, and Gary St. Laurent.
About the author
I've worked at WaterFire Providence since 2003. For the first 9 years of my career, I worked in the Production Shop learning all of the details that go into the physical production of the event. In 2012 transitioned to the role of managing WaterFire's social media and web presence. I now head up WaterFire Providence's digital projects including, web, social, databases, and our physical IT infrastructure.
