Featuring live music, food, and fun activities for District youth, Whitman-Walker’s East of the River Fall Festival 2024 at Sycamore & Oak Retail Village in Southeast D.C. on Aug. 17, offered a fun-filled day to engage with the community and prepare for the upcoming school year.
With live entertainment by Culture Queen, go-go performances by Sirius Company, spoken word poetry performances and more, Whitman-Walker hosted the event to provide families with backpacks, school supplies, and a reminder the organization is always there to offer health care and a helping hand.
“We are completely delighted with the turnout. We gave out over 500 backpacks and school supplies towards Wards 7 and 8 youth. That is Whitman-Walker’s core mission, really connecting with the communities that we serve in a variety of different ways beyond just HIV [and] LGBTQ services,” Whitman-Walker’s External Affairs and Community Coordinator Dwight Venson told The Informer. “We are connecting with Ward 8 families through our Max Robinson Center and our East of the River Fall Festival, and so many other ways.”
Venson said partnering with Sycamore & Oak and corporate sponsors like PricewaterhouseCooper International Limited (PwC) and Deloitte helped bring the event to fruition.
“I think we like to think of ourselves as a vehicle to sort of navigate communities to resources that we can find. Whitman-Walker, by no means has the resources to do all of this alone, and so it wouldn’t be possible without our corporate sponsors, such as PwC, who donated all the backpacks and supplies, and Deloitte who sent out a troop of volunteers,” said Venson. “The Sycamore & Oak folks have come out and supported so much by just donating the space and supplying a few activations like face paint, cotton candy, popcorn, etc. It really is a community effort, and we’re happy that we can show up in that way.”
Parents, such as Randy Foster, were extremely grateful to receive school supplies to equip their children with the tools they need to thrive as the Aug. 28 back-to-school date for District of Columbia Public Schools quickly approaches.
Foster attended the community event with both of his sons Alex, 6, and Cedric, 10.
“It’s a nice event for the community. They are taking care of everybody. [My two sons have received] backpacks, folders, pencil pouches, things they really need,” Foster told The Informer.
“Especially with inflation and the prices going up on everything, this is helping me out a lot.”
The annual community event was originally created in 2017 by a beloved staff member, Adisa Bakare, known as “a helpful and passionate leader of many” who died earlier this year. Moving forward, the event will carry on under Bakare’s namesake, in honor of his life and legacy.
“I’m standing in the shoes of giants and just continuing [Bakare’s] legacy. I’m so honored to be able to continue to expand this event,” Venson said. “It started off as a barbeque in the parking lot of our old facility. Now, it [has] evolved into so much more, and that’s really a testament to the strength of how this community has evolved, but also how Whitman-Walker has evolved with the community.”