Founder’s Day is out, Celebrate Reston! is in.
The annual festival honoring Reston founder Robert E. Simon’s birthday will return to Lake Anne Plaza on April 5 from 11:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. under a new name that organizers believe more clearly conveys the event’s “spirit of enjoyment and celebration,” Reston Museum Executive Director Lisa Watts says.
“We’re still honoring the legacy of Bob Simon and his vision for Reston and the founding of it. We’re still going to do the cake cutting, because it’s in honor of his birthday,” Watts explained to FFXnow. “It’s just the name that has changed so that we can pull in maybe more people and have them informed about Reston and its founding.”
Organized by Reston Museum and the Reston Community Center (RCC), the upcoming Celebrate Reston will be the 21st iteration of the event, which began in 2004 as a commemoration of Simon’s 90th birthday.
In addition to live entertainment and a vendor market featuring local nonprofits and businesses, the festivities will include a revival of the book fair that was added to Founder’s Day for its 20th anniversary last year.
This time, Kwame Alexander, a Reston resident and Emmy-winning author and poet who recently visited Langston Hughes Middle School, has been tapped as a guest speaker. He will appear at Elden Street Tea Shop (1633A Washington Plaza North) for a reception.
As of mid-March, Celebrate Reston had enlisted about 12 authors to participate in its book fair by hosting a table on the plaza, where they can sell and sign books, or giving free talks at Reston Museum and Reston’s Used Book Shop (1623 Washington Plaza North).
Applications for authors and other vendors are still being accepted through tomorrow (Tuesday), according to Watts, who noted that the participating writers so far represent a wide range of subjects, from fiction to astronomy.
“It’s a nice opportunity just to get to know the people in your community, while having these authors get an opportunity to let themselves be known,” she said.
There won’t be many food and drink options among the vendors — aside from a possible visit by Kona Ice — because the organizers want to encourage visitors to support the restaurants around Lake Anne Plaza, including Elden Street Tea Shop, Lake Anne Brew House, Kalypso’s Sports Tavern, Cafe Montmarte, and Lake Anne Coffee House and Wine Bar.
Attendees can also look forward to lawn games like cornhole, hula hoops and other family-friendly activities in a play area that RCC will set up at the site.
“We’re trying to just make it an engaging time for families to be there, but also, we’re promoting literacy and the talent of Reston,” Watts said.
Though the name has changed, Celebrate Reston’s goal of saluting Simon’s vision of an open, inclusive community, founded in the 1960s when much of Virginia was still fighting to maintain segregation, remains “a very important and relevant message to get across,” Watts says.
Currently in the midst of her first year as Reston Museum’s executive director, Watts says her priorities include improving the museum’s archives, possibly pursuing a capital improvement grant to fund a renovation that could turn the museum into a “more immersive experience,” and partnering with other organizations and businesses to both preserve Reston’s history and document its present.
All of those plans ultimately boil down to a desire to expand Reston Museum’s reach and get more of the community involved.
“Really, community is what it’s all about, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” Watts said.
