WG to have small-scale Founder's Day event

City council office, and neighborhood association to work on celebration plans

By Kate Carter

Willow Glen residents will have opportunities to mark the 74th anniversary of their community this weekend, although not with the traditional Founder's Day street fair and parade.

San Jose District 6 City Councilman Ken Yeager's office, working with the Willow Glen Neighborhood Association and other community groups, is helping host "low-key" activities Sept. 8 at the Live Oak Adult Day Care Center and the Willow Glen branch library to help the community remember its roots. The organizations also hope to take advantage of a groundswell of community support for the Founder's Day events, in the wake of their recent cancellation by event sponsor the Willow Glen Business and Professional Association, in preparation for a big celebration next year.

"It's an opportunity for us to look at what was founded and how we've evolved as a community in Willow Glen," said Yeager aide Denelle Fedor. "It's good to use this day as a reflection point. Next year is the 75th anniversary, and we guarantee that next year will be a grand event. Our office will be a leader or the leader in ensuring Founder's Day takes place next year."

Founder's Day is an annual festival on Lincoln Avenue that celebrates Willow Glen's incorporation as a city on Sept. 8, 1927. For about the past 10 years, the business association, using Business Improvement District funds, sponsorships and San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs grants, has put on the event.

Earlier this month, however, the business association's executive board voted to cancel this year's event planned for Sept. 8, citing financial constraints and a lack of volunteers. It also voted to consolidate the event with its June Lincoln Avenue street festival, Dancing on the Avenue, in the future.

Fedor and neighborhood association president John Gibbs, though, said the community is not prepared to give up a celebration it has come to expect and enjoy and is willing to provide the money and effort it will take to make it happen in coming years.

"The problem is that one group tries to own the event," Gibbs said. "It's better that the community own the event. I think the community wants to do it; they're just looking for some forum to put it together."

But Fedor and Gibbs also admit it was impossible to try to bring together the energies of many callers and supporters in time to save this year's Founder's Day. Instead, they decided to "piggy-back" an acknowledgement of the day onto an open house at the adult day care center, 1147 Minnesota Ave., already scheduled for 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sept. 8. People will be able to view the interior of the restored home of Willow Glen's first mayor, that the city earlier this year named an historic landmark.

Visitors to the center will also have the chance to see showings of a 45-minute, 1950 film, "Life in Willow Glen." Plans for making historic Willow Glen photos and books of noteworthy Willow Glen homes are also in the works, Fedor said.

Refreshments will be available at the adult day-care center as well as at the adjacent library, 1157 Minnesota Ave., which will offer some children's activities and possibly a performer, Fedor said. Tables with information about the neighborhood association and other neighborhood groups could also be set up in the two locations, she said.

Gibbs hopes there is a table specifically for signing people up to help plan next year's Founder's Day celebration. He said the neighborhood association already has a database of 60 people who want to help with Founder's Day and that the number will grow as the realization sets in that the event is not happening this year.

"People take things for granted, and the business association's been doing the heavy lifting on this thing," Gibbs said. "There are a lot of new residents in Willow Glen who want to feel connected. I feel there's even more sense of community."

He added that he hoped the business association would also participate in plans for next year's Founder's Day.

"I don't see how successful a 2002 event could be without the participation of the business owners," he said. "I would hope they would be involved."

Business association president Karen Naegeli said she thinks it is important that Founder's Day be recognized and apologized that the event is not happening this year as it has in the past. She said the business association is considering acknowledging Founder's Day next year in combination with Dancing on the Avenue. She wouldn't say if the business association would be interested in participating in a September Founder's Day event next year.

Fedor said she had talked to the business association about trying to use the money it had to put on a smaller Founder's Day this year, but that it preferred to concentrate its energies on future bigger events. She said part of the reason for doing something this year would be to use the $10,000 of city grant money that they will lose if they don't have the event. They will only be eligible for $1,000 of the grant if they choose to put Founder's Day on next year, as grant amounts increase with a group's consistency in using them, she said.

The council office is unable to use that grant money instead, Fedor said, and so is depending on some of its own office funds as well as in-kind donations to acknowledge Sept. 8 this year. She also encouraged people to find their own ways of celebrating their community, by visiting the Farmer's Market at the corner of Minnesota and Lincoln avenues, patronizing their local retailers, restaurants and other businesses, or participating in the activities at the adult day-care center and library.

"It's really unfortunate we can't have Founder's Day as we have in the past, but it can't mean the day is overlooked," Fedor said. "It's important to reconnect and see what our community is really about, and what it's really about is the intangibles."

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For more information about the Sept. 8 activities or to volunteer, call the District 6 office, 408.277.5166.

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