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Family Friendly Weekends

January 05, 2009 (10:07 pm) | Permanent Link

by Lee Allen

Creating Family Friendly Weekends downtown had been likened to a bag full of options badly in need of organization and direction. And once that happened, the concept moved forward rapidly from idea to implementation.

“It was just a week before Christmas that everybody involved finally settled on the name of the event,” says Kimberly Schmitz of the Metropolitan Tucson Convention and Visitors Bureau. Rollout of initial Family Friendly Weekend activities will begin with a kick-off event on January 24th.

While numerous calendars and schedules of activities and events once proliferated, they were scattered and disjointed. Many sought to attract resident and visiting families to downtown, but they did so in separate, isolated ways. City Councilman Rodney Glassman was aware that downtown had a lot to offer families with small children, but the information wasn’t getting to its intended audience. “There were plenty of events taking place, but no coordination to get the news of these events to families looking for these types of activities.”

So the councilman rounded up a group of decision-makers, including representatives of more than 50 organizations, to discuss how to create strength out of unity by collectively organizing and promoting Saturday downtown activities, every week, at a variety of sites.

“This was a painless, easy, process to pull together,” Glassman says. Ordinarily when working with that many different groups, it’s a bit like herding cats — but not in this case. “All organizations with programming downtown were committed to the concept of making downtown as attractive as possible for families. And what we’ve put together, somewhat of a unique prototype I believe, is 52 weeks of programming which includes special events, large scale venues, and restaurants for families with a goal of making downtown a weekend option, year-round.”

“We’re focusing on the core downtown area where there will be places to go and things to do for families, great entertainment, unique experiences, adventure activities, and fun learning,” says Schmitz. “We’re packaging these events and promoting them together by creating a master calendar, one-stop information source, with details on our web page [www.FamilyFriendlyWeekends.org] where individual organizations events and activities will be linked online.”

“A key component of this concept is that it’s funded by private businesses with programming supplied by local non-profit organizations,” says Glassman. “It’s a sustainable venture we hope to continue — and expand — well into the future.”