The Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park are hosting their annual fundraiser next week. The event, cheekily titled the Spring Funraiser, will take place on Wednesday, May 17 from 6 – 8:30 p.m. at Williamsburg’s Brooklyn Brewery (79 North 11th St.) to support the nearby Bushwick Inlet Park.
Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park is a volunteer community-based organization dedicated to serving North Brooklyn’s Bushwick Inlet Park, a 27-acre park-in-progress that was promised to the neighborhood almost two decades ago.
The Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park group provides supplemental park stewardship, environmental education events, music series, theater and circus events and art classes in the park. Grants and discretionary funding have helped maintain this programming, but other funding is necessary, and the annual fundraiser will help the group continue their efforts.
The Spring Funraiser at Brooklyn Brewery will include food and drinks, including craft beer, and musical entertainment. There are several different tiers of tickets, including a $50, $75, and $100 with entry for one person and a $250 with entry for two. Sponsorship levels start at $500 and go up to $10,000.
When Greenpointers asked the president of the Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park group, Katherine Thompson, about the decision to host the Funrasier at the Brooklyn Brewery, she explained that the brewery has “a history of always supporting local grassroots organizations from family run soccer leagues to fighting power plants to open space.” Thompson said that the brewery offered to host the event and, “it just felt right and made so much sense.”
Thompson continued by emphasizing the importance of the fundraiser to her, her team, and the entire community. “During the pandemic it became clear that parks are essential to our emotional and physical well being. And so, FBIP volunteers write grants and solicit donations to fund a diverse array of sustainable, ecological, educational, and cultural programming which aim to support the health and well being of our community members but also for Bushwick Inlet Park itself,” she told Greenpointers.
Some of the many events organized by the Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park include the Summer Music Series on Thursday evenings on the waterfront plaza, monthly free Ecology and Art classes, a Waterfront Sustainability and Resilience Design Seminar, and Citizen Science Oyster monitoring. Thompson also said that the group works on the community gardens in the park during Weeding Wednesdays and It’s My Park Day events.
Last year, a new portion of Bushwick Inlet Park opened at 50 Kent, adding almost two acres of new open space which includes 19 planters full of sustainable native species including many pollinators. “Sadly, the NYC Parks is terribly underfunded and unfortunately hasn’t the capacity to properly care for these beautiful but neglected garden beds,” Thompson told Greenpointers.
“So we have a new initiative to support the stewardship of 50 Kent by bringing together our partners at NYC Parks, North Brooklyn Parks Alliance and the FBIP Williamsburg Pollinator Project to strategize through programing, material and professional investment, and proactive watering and weeding scheduling to see if we can, as a team, successfully care for the gardens,” Thompson stated.
“Our park is growing and so must the Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park,” Thompson concluded. To help Thompson and Friends of Bushwick Inlet Park, the entire community is invited to attend the Spring Funraiser. Those interested can purchase tickets here.