By Robert Perea
While the ribbon cutting for the new Community Response and Resource Center wasn’t scheduled until Wednesday, the facility’s new lawn event space hosted its first public event last Saturday night.
The Fernley Community Foundation hosted its annual FernStock Dinner and Auction fundraiser in the Senior Center next door, then hosted its free outdoor concert in the lawn area of the CRRC.
“Having this new venue with ample parking will be a game-changer, not just for our event, but for many other events around the community,” said Fernley Community Foundation Chairman Cody Wagner.
At the dinner, Ray and Tasha Lowery were honored as the Individual Donors of the Year, IBEW Local 401 was named the Business Donor of the Year and Alan LaVoie was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award for their contributions and dedication to the Foundation.
“Without tremendous people and businesses like this in our community, we would not be able to continue our contributions in bettering Fernley,” Wagner said.
In preparing to host the first FernStock in 2019, Wagner imagined it as something similar to what the Boys & Girls Club of Mason Valley has done with Night in the Country. Before it became the huge multi-day music festival it is today, the first Night in the Country was held in the rodeo arena at the Lyon County Fairgrounds, with a flatbed trailer for a stage.
The first FernStock in 2019 was held at the Fernley 95A Speedway on the same day as a race night, in hopes of capitalizing on the audience
“Everything from finding sponsorships to coordinating sound logistics and bands, to correctly marketing to get people there was challenging,” Wagner said. “As I remember, the concert had to take place at 3 p.m. on a 95-degree August afternoon with minimal shade. Needless to say, the event wasn't exactly the hit that I had envisioned.”
As disappointed as he was to put that much time and effort into something that didn't work, Wagner called that effort a learning experience. While there was no FernStock event in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the opening of the new Fernley Senior Center in November 2020 provided a new location for the event in 2021.
That year’s event was the first with a new format that involved a fundraising dinner followed by a concert from 7-10 p.m. that made the hot August sun much less of a factor.
“The downside was that we held the concert in an empty dirt lot behind the Senior Center while dreaming of having an actual venue at which to hold this event in the near future,” Wagner said. “This new format ended up being a much better concept compared to the original, as we were able to grow the event into what it now has become.”
With the dinner at the Senior Center followed by the concert on the CRRC lawn event space, Wagner said this year's FernStock event finally brought it all together and he expects the facility to have a similar impact on other community events.
“We are looking forward to our Boys & Girls Club operating the area and plan to work closely with them to create monumental improvements in our community's out-of-school youth education and community gathering opportunities,” Wagner said.
Comment
Comments