I hope everyone had a great time at the third annual Cranmer Park Community Picnic on July 2.  I woke that morning and my heart sank when the forecast predicted thunderstorms from 7pm – 9pm.  Remember the crazy storm that crashed the party last year right as the Glendale Fireworks started?  But our summer weather cooperated by rolling in early and moving out to the eastern plains leaving behind sunny skies and cooler temps for our Picnic.

We had a great turnout this year spread out across our beautiful Cranmer Park.  Our community police officer for the event estimated 1500 to possibly 2000 people in attendance.  The food trucks were kept busy all evening, we reunited several families with lost kiddos and one young lady with her wallet!   The fabulous Denver Municipal Band in its full orchestra ensemble performed a great program of marches, popular and jazz pieces along with tributes to all the armed forces that was particularly appropriate for our Independence Day celebration.  And the Glendale Fireworks were fabulous this year!  See our Gallery for photos from the picnic.

Many thanks need to be given to all our sponsors, our co-host, Mary Beth Susman and her District 5 City Council office and all our great volunteers.  It takes a small army to make this fun event happen and this year’s planning committee was a joy to work with: Sue Bollman, Andrea Dikeou, Ken Malo, Sheila Pitto and I started planning back in early fall of 2018 (almost immediately after the previous picnic was wrapped up).

This year’s event was sponsored by our neighborhood friends at 9+CO (the new mixed use development at the former CU Health Science Center), Basil Docs Pizzeria at 3rd & Holly, Ann Spoor of Berkshire Hathaway Home Innovators, Park Burger on South Holly and US Bank on Colorado Blvd at 7th Avenue.

One of the largest costs at an event like this is waste management and we are proud to share an impressive diversion rate this year of 82% – up from last year’s 62%!  This means we reduced our waste by diverting more of it to compost and recyclables.  For the past two years we have worked with Eco-Cycle of Boulder to help us with our Zero Waste goals to keep our neighborhood park clean and provide real environment benefits. Read about it here:  Hilltop Community Picnic 2019 Environmental Benefit Summary  Thank you neighbors and volunteers for your help in achieving this and thank you to our friends at Graland Country Day School for allowing use of their recycle and trash dumpsters.

Volunteers make these events happen from the planning stages which began almost immediately last year to the folks like Sue Bollman and Ann Spoor who showed up very early the next morning to walk through the park and pick up debris from the party and treasures left behind we missed the night before.  If you are missing an item from that evening, we may have it here in our Lost & Found.

Wende Reoch, Cranmer Park/Hilltop Civic Association