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Block Party draws crowds downtown
Posted: Thursday, Jul 17, 2008 - 08:39:18 am CDT
by Heidi Hood - Staff writer
 | | STUDYING IN THE SAND - Jairo Chavez of Cotulla, Carlos de la Torre of Sabinal and Schaefer Edwards of Uvalde (left to right) work on a beach profile at Lover's Key on the Florida gulf coast during the recent GeoFORCE Texas summer academy.
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It was hot, heat shimmering across the black pavement of Getty Street, but despite the heat Saturday afternoon, the turnout for the Downtown Block Party was a good one.
“Mission accomplished,” Wendy Speer, director of the Uvalde Area Chamber of Commerce, said Monday afternoon.
Speer explained that the whole purpose of the block party was to get Uvalde citizens to visit the downtown area and remind people about the businesses that make their home on Getty Street.
The combination of turnout at the block party as well as retailers commenting on great sales, indicated to Speer that the block party was a success.
“I talked with Café Espresso; they just had unbelievable sales,” she said.
Speer said she also spoke with a couple of other merchants in the area and overwhelmingly the responses were positive.
“Other merchants just had people in their stores all day long,” Speer said, which was exactly what the Chamber hoped to accomplish; a re-interest in downtown merchants following completion of the first portion of the Highway 83-Getty Street road construction project.
Over a period of time the work that has included new sidewalks and streetlights has, on occasion, closed down Getty Street, made it difficult to park, and in general has had a negative impact on the businesses in downtown Uvalde.
With Texas Department of Transportation re-opening the first several blocks of Getty Street, Speer explained it was the Chamber's desire to get people re-interested in downtown shops.
“This year we had a mission to get people in the stores,” she said. “We needed to, as a community, do something for downtown merchants.”
The Chamber felt that the “something” should be sooner rather than later and this was part of the reason the Chamber decided to hold the block party in mid-July heat.
But even though the sun shined down Saturday afternoon, it didn't stop a crowd from showing up. People milled about, going into stores as well as visiting the 80 to 85 booths lining both sides of the street.
There were informational booths, like the St. Henry de Osso's booth that Cheryl Sandoval was manning.
When asked what she was handing out, Sandoval pointed to stacks of coloring books for children and general information about St. Henry de Osso's counseling and tutoring program.
“For people to learn more about us,” she explained.
There were other informational booths speckled here and there as well. Sul Ross had a booth, Dr. James Meyer had a booth and that is just to name a few. The Humane Society of Uvalde brought pets, puppies that were diligently being led around by boys holding leashes, and then there was the dunking tank.
Speer said that several members of the Uvalde City Council, along with other city officials, volunteered for the dunking tank. In turn each of the volunteers perched precariously above the water as young and old customers alike tried using a neon yellow softball to trigger the release and plunge a city official into the tank
Many a city official emerged dripping from the dunk tank.
There was also lots and lots of food.
A barbecue was set up on the south end of Getty, spirals of smoke rising toward the Texas blue sky, and all along the street there were things to eat and drink.
The Lions Club was making funnel cakes, a favorite among many Saturday. Marcy Froats, director of food services for Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, laughingly joked that they were low-fat funnel cakes wink, wink.
And, it was this type of good humor that permeated the air Saturday afternoon. Children, and their parents too, stopped at the Schwan's Fine Food booth and got their hair painted with every color of the rainbow, literally. There was face painting, a huge jumping castle for the younger visitors, and on both ends of Getty Street music played.
As for whether the event will become annual, Speer said that has not yet been decided by Chamber directors.
“We really only asked about this one,” she said. But with the turnout such a success Speer said she would like to do something like this around the holidays.
“As the Chamber manager, I would like to see something like this in the fall, to get people excited for holiday shopping,” she said.
It would also be cooler in the fall, though the heat did not seem to divert anyone from visiting the newly opened, and hopefully newly rejuvenated, downtown Uvalde.
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