Barracks Row Fall Festival

On Saturday, September 26^th I volunteered at the Barracks Row Fall Festival. The festival is organized by Barracks Row Main Street, a non-profit organization that aims to preserve and enhance Capitol Hill’s historic 8th Street, SE, commercial corridor and revitalize its business community. The group’s focus is the five blocks of 8th Street that stretch south from Pennsylvania Ave S.E. to the terminus of 8th Street at the Washington Navy Yard along M Street, S.E.

This was my third time volunteering for the festival in the past six years and it has really grown in size (in terms of the number of vendors and in festival attendance).  There were about sixty vendors ranging from local artisans selling t-shirts and jewelry to local businesses to larger corporate businesses. Each exhibiting vendor was set up with a 10x10 tent, one rectangular table and two chairs. Some of the more notable exhibitors and acts were the United States Marine Corps, The Trapeze School New York, and the Military Hospitality Alliance (sponsors of the Military Chef's Cook Off and the Leesburg Petting Zoo. The festival also had a stage in the center of 8^th Street with rotating musical acts.

My volunteer role was stationed at the popular petting zoo. The petting zoo consisted of a gated area on the street filled with straw and hay bales. Within the zoo there were two llamas, one donkey and a five-day-old foal, two goats, two lambs, one turtle, one bunny, one hedgehog and a bunch of chicks. My role was to man the entry gate to the petting zoo. I had festival attendees line up and then allowed ten people to enter the zoo for five minutes. Within the gates, the Leesburg Petting Zoo professionals helped festival attendees hold the more delicate animals and cleaned up after the animals. After five minutes, I would yell for everyone to exit the zoo, thank everyone for visiting, and then let the next ten guests enter. There was an added challenge to these duties due to the fact that the majority of guests were super enthusiastic little kids.