4th Annual Water Festival (in partnership with Earth Day Festival at same time, same place)
SUNDAY • APRIL 21 • 9AM – 2PM

Reid Park DeMeester Outdoor Performance Area
(Country Club Road, N. of 22nd Street, Tucson)
FREE to attend!

YOU’RE INVITED to participate in Tucson Arts Brigade’s 4th Annual Water Festival, integrating art, science and culture to raise awareness, promote stewardship, and foster creative expression about our water future. This year, The Water Festival is partnering with the Earth Day Festival at Reid Park!

THE WATER FESTIVAL is the ONLY large-scale community event in Pima County that showcases creativity and water solutions together and is a prime opportunity to engage the public through diverse activities for learning, networking, and family fun!

• Exhibitor Fair
• Performances
• Art Show
• Music
• Speakers
• Workshops
• Kids Activities
• 3-Mile Walk for Water (8am-9am)
• Cultural / Spiritual Connections
• Design for Water Solutions Contest
• “The Vibe” LIVE Art Happenings
• Fun Surprises & Special Guests!

I’ve been to this cool, refreshing festival in the past and even got to see Mermaid Odette in her portable pool. 4th Annual Water festival sponsored by Tucson Arts Brigade. More info at: http://www.waterfestivaltucson.org/ or call 520-623-2119, info@waterfestivaltucson.org. This festival integrates water, art, science, and culture to raise awareness about water use and resources.

More info on 19th Annual Earth Day at www.tucsonearthday.org, 520-206-8814,
info@tucsonearthday.org.

Join the Parade
All species great and small-insects, plants and animals-the Earth needs them all! Dress-up and participate in the “All Species Procession” as part of the Earth Day Parade! Make a banner and tell us how your species is so important to Planet Earth. Are you helping clean the air (trees and plants)? Are you an endangered or threatened species? The ice may be melting your home (global warming) or maybe there hasn’t been rain in a while so you are affected by drought or the threat of fire… let us know what we should do to help all species have a place on earth! Parade begins at 10:00 and winners are announced at 11:30.

Solar Competition
Model Solar Electric Cars and Houses, designed and constructed by middle school students, are real world engineering projects. The kits contain solar cells, motors, batteries, lights and other optional parts. The design and the construction is “left to the ingenuity of the student”! Competition begins at 10:45. Awards at 1:00!
For a kit order form and information on how to enter email Stacey at solar@swetucson.org

Alternate Fuel Vehicle Show
Check out vehicles that run on alternate fuels such as biodiesel, compressed natural gas, electric, ethanol, propane and waste vegetable oil. Ask the experts how you can start using an alternate fuel in your vehicle to keep the air clean for all.

Bike to the Zoo
Animals love the earth and need clean air too! So, ride your bike to the Reid Park Zoo and get FREE admission by showing your safety helmet. Before or after visiting the zoo, ride over to the Earth Day Festival for more fun!

Celebrate Mother Earth, and water– her most precious resource.

“The Elephant Whisperer”
by Lawrence Anthony with Graham Spence

This 2009 book is a ten year story of how a conservationist/game reserve owner of 5,000 acres in Zululand, South Africa takes in an unwanted herd of 7 elephants, which were causing trouble in another reserve in Africa. If he didn’t take them in all of them would have been shot and killed. He becomes their “friend” and by his kindness and gentle speech is able to communicate with them, mostly the matriarch elephant named Nana.

But Anthony writes in the opening Prologue:

“Make no mistake, the title of this book is not about me for I make no claim to any special abilities. It is about the elephants – it was they who whispered to me and taught me how to learn.” (page 1)

There are numerous, exciting adventures related in the book – poachers, escape of the elephants, illness, birth & death, another female orphaned elephant, bush fire, flooding. He grippingly relates stories of living peaceably with the other animals in the African wild – snakes (including the deadly Black Mambas, pythons, and cobras), crocodiles, Cape buffaloes.

Later Anthony and his French 2nd wife Francoise entertain guests in a new luxury lodge at Thula Thula with jeep or walking safaris, to view first hand the African animals such as giraffes, zebras, rhinos, leopards, hyenas, antelopes, monkeys, etc., including this herd of elephants.

What is extremely touching is how Anthony becomes an “elephant whisperer”, as he learns to communicate with this novel herd by watching their ears, eyes, trunk explorations, and noting their stomach rumblings. He keenly observed their behavior and admired their sense of intuition and caring for their young. He also mentions that they can communicate via infrasound vibrations(through unique stomach rumblings) over miles with each other, perhaps throughout the African continent (page 154 & 155).

Anthony’s dream was to preserve the neighboring land into a Royal Zulu game preserve for the Zulu tribes that live nearby, and he also founded The Earth Organization to care for wild animal and plant kingdoms. He and Spence have also written another book about Anthony’s courageous work to save the animals in the Baghdad Zoo during Desert Storm in 2003 (“Babylon’s Ark: The Incredible Wartime Rescue of the Baghdad Zoo”, 2007).

When Anthony suddenly died last March 2, 2012 at age 61 of a heart attack, this elephant herd somehow knew and walked for miles out of the bush to stand outside of his home for 2 days, apparently to pay their respect for him, their deceased “friend”. How they knew he died was probably due to that special, spiritual bond that was created between him and this herd over 13 years. Indeed it was a fitting tribute to this admirable, kind man who saved their lives and took them without hesitation onto his large reserve to live peaceably in the wild once more.

After reading this book which helped me to understand and respect elephants a whole lot more, it also encouraged me to visit these magnificent pachyderms at the Reid Park Zoo in their new large enclosure Expedition Tanzania.

FREE FAMILY FESTIVAL IN THE PARK SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 17TH

Tucson Parks and Recreation Department and Dan Felix Memorial Fund present the 7th Annual Family Festival in the Park. This free annual community-wide event is about having family fun and a terrific opportunity for Tucson Parks and Recreation to showcase programs and activities offered to the community. This year we have partnered with the Community Food Bank of Southern Arizona, so please bring a donation of canned goods to the festival. The event is expected to attract more than 9,000 Tucsonans. Family activities include stage entertainment, carnival games, inflatables, crafts, golf clinic, tennis games, and demonstrations of pottery, and drawing offered by the leisure class unit.

The Reid Park Zoo will have free admission as well as the Edith Ball Adaptive Recreation Center hosting an afternoon of free swimming from Noon-4 p.m. and Tucson City Golf will offer a free 10-minute golf instruction at the Randolph Driving Range adjacent to the park on Alvernon Way from 10 a.m.-noon. Come to our Parks and Recreation information booth to catch the highlights the various Parks and Recreation units offering services and programs to the community. Entertainment will be presented throughout the day and a variety of foods will be available for purchase through local vendors.

Who:Everyone

What:Family Festival in the Park

When:Saturday, November 17th, 10 a.m-2 p.m.

Where:Reid Park, 22nd and Country Club (West of the Zoo)

Contact:Sierra Davenport, Community Promotions and Marketing Manager
Sierra.Davenport@tucsonaz.gov or 837-8032 for more information

A special thanks to our event sponsors: Dan Felix Memorial Fund, Northwest Medical Center, Pyramid Federal Credit Union, Carondelet, Tucson Lifestyle Magazine, Bear Essential News, and Wendy’s.