More than 1,000 Evanston residents — including elementary, middle, high school students and adults — came out to the recently renovated Robert Crown Community Center Sunday afternoon for a carnival with games, raffle prizes, bouncy castles , free crafts and food.
The first event of its kind was also the first major community gathering hosted at Robert Crown since its official reopening in October 2020. With most of the community vaccinated against COVID-19 and the number of cases currently low, the carnival offered a great opportunity to bring people from all over Evanston together again during the first few days of the new school year.
The event was also free and children had the opportunity to try ice skating, play basketball or ping pong and enjoy hot dogs, hamburgers and popcorn cooked by volunteers and staff from both Robert Crown and the youth division and the city’s youth.
“It just feels like a community again. With the distancing and virtual this and virtual that, only a certain amount of people could come in at a time, not the whole community could come and actually enjoy what we had and see what we had to offer,” he said Robert Crown Program Director Adam Eberhardt.. “It’s a good way to start the school year.”
City staff and volunteers also said community participation was much greater than expected and, in the future, the community center wants to go even bigger with more food and more activities, according to Amanda Eberhardt, Program Coordinator D’Agostino and Asst. Program Coordinator Gladys Flores.
Attendees who checked in with D’Agostino and Flores at the front desk inside the Robert Crown entrance received a free raffle ticket that they could enter to win one of five different prizes, which included a salsa dance class, a pottery class, a gym pass, youth program enrollment, and a public ice skating pass. The renovated community center features two ice rinks, a gym, outdoor play fields, a public library and a number of multi-purpose rooms and offices.
One of those offices houses the Open Studio Project, a local nonprofit based on Sherman Avenue that uses art to teach “personal growth, social-emotional learning and community well-being,” according to its website. According to Executive Director and Art Therapist Sarah Laing.
Laing and her team opened a studio last year at Evanston Township High School, which operated five days a week as a resource for students returning to in-person school amid the pandemic. In addition, the Open Studio Project now has a location in the Family Focus building on Dewey Avenue, which is also set to be renovated over the next few years thanks to federal pandemic relief funding.
“It’s been buzzing [today], I would say,” Laing said. “One of the reasons we are here is to make people aware. With the pandemic, we literally opened the program here at the beginning of the pandemic, so it never really gave us a chance to get the word out that we’re here, but it’s growing, and we did a really full summer camp program here. So we’re just looking to make more connections with families to let them know we’re here.”
Volunteers and staff agreed that people were excited for a fresh start this year after several long and challenging years in Evanston and around the world. D’Agostino and Flores said the free event drew a large and diverse crowd of children, teens and adults from around the city who are involved in many different community organizations, too, and they hope to build on that momentum. to continue popular behavior. public events and community gatherings.
“People seemed calm. They were able to relax and come and hang out with their family without worrying about how much the food is or how much the activity is going to be,” D’Agostino said. “So you can see them settle and relax and meet people. I’ve seen some introductions happen, some playdates set, so that was good to see.”
