The Friends of Fonticello Park’s Events and Programming Committee is working hard to bring events to the park that serve the interest and needs of the community. Check out the calendar page for upcoming events. Below is a list of our annual events and brief history of past events. The group is working to host annual events in spring, summer and fall.

Markiya Dickson Spring Picnic

The first annual Markiya Dickson Spring Picnic will be held April 1, 2023, in collaboration with the Department of Parks, Recreation, and Community Facilities’ Ribbon Cutting for the new Markiya Dickson Imagination Zone (playground) Ribbon Cutting. There will be food trucks, family activities, and music. This event is always free and open to the public.

Reedy Creek Coalition Invasive Plant Education

March 26, 2023: For Invasive Species Awareness Month, Reedy Creek Coalition hosted an educational event in the Fonticello Food Forest. They shared tips on how to safely remove ivy from a tree to avoid damage. Tools were provided for those who wanted to remove ivy from a tree in the park.

Attendees:

• Identified and pulled small privet from the ground, remove medium size ones with a weed wrench
• Walked with an RCC member who helped folks ID the invasive plants present in the park and shared information about the negative impacts of invasive plants, how they spread, and why we need more native plants.
• Played matching games: Match cuttings of comment invasive plants to the name of the plant.
• Attendees brought small cutting of a vine or shrub from their yard if they were concerned about it being a non-native invasive and RCC members helped identify them.

SPCA Dog Safety Education

March 18, 2023: SPCA Humane Event Coordinator, Chanel Moses was available o provide information about interacting safely with strange/new dogs. A well trained, established shelter dog was on site. Neighbors stopped by to learn how to approach new dogs, ask for permission, put their hand out for initial sniffs, read body language, and more!

Riverside Outfitters Tree Climbing

January 28, 2023: Board members Chris Ercolano and Laney Sullivan partnered with Riverside Outfitters to bring a day of family fun and tree climbing to the park in January! We had an amazing turnout and Board member Carl Joseph also got in on the fun, climbing up one of the trees in the park! We are so grateful for community partners, like Riverside Outfitters, who support the park and community by hosting FREE programming for the community! Look for more fun events in the park soon!

Keep Virginia Cozy Trash Clean Up

December 4, 2022: We had an awesome group of community volunteers come out to the park in December and pick up 1640 pounds of litter in the park, including a sofa, three mattresses, two tires, a newsstand and countless pieces of micro trash. We helped Keep Virginia Cozy top their goal of removing 100k pounds of litter from Richmond greenways! We finished off the day with a kickball game and cook out in the park!

Native Plant Chat and Plant Swap with Bill Shanabruch of Reedy Creek Environmental

October 11, 2022: Bill Shanabruch joined us to chat about getting started with native plantings and why it is so important. Attendees brought native plants for swapping after!