Community Corner

Recreation Dept. Announces Date for Westwood Day

The kickoff fundraiser for the 2012 event will be held on Saturday with a visit from Santa Claus at the Islington Community Center.

Residents in Westwood who have received or downloaded a copy of the town's winter newsletter may have noticed a full page description of an event residents haven't seen in nearly two decades: .

As it works with subcommittees to organize the event, the Westwood Recreation Department has been hard at work trying to pin down a date for the event, originally estimating it to take place in late September or early October of next year. And this week, that date was chosen - Saturday, Sept. 22, 2012.

"We settled on that date because we thought it's a couple of weeks after school gets back in, and the whole rush of getting back into school is over," Westwood Recreation Director David Burnes said Wednesday. "The weather is generally great that time of year." 

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Westwood's Interim Athletic Director Peter Richards, meanwhile, was also able to move that week's varsity football game against Bellingham from Friday to take place on the same day as Westwood Day. 

"We'll have the football game at the end of the day," said Burnes, who added that the day-long event will culminate with a fireworks display, something the town normally only sees once a year on New Year's Eve.

Find out what's happening in Westwoodwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Moreover, the department is hosting its first official fundraiser for Westwood Day this Saturday, when families in town will have , and enjoy warm drinks and cookies. 

The Santa fundraiser kicks off at 9 a.m. Saturday and runs through noon.

"We're hoping to attract a large crowd (on Saturday)," Burnes said. "It's also to raise awareness of Westwood Day and to support it. It's a kind of great opportunity to kill two birds with one stone."

It will be the first of many similar events as the department works to raise funds for Westwood Day. A few weeks back, the Recreation Department worked with the chairs of the subcommittees to come up with ideas as how to do so.

"It was good to give them what our thoughts were on this day and allow them to go back and host their own committee meeting," Burnes said. "Each is having their first meeting and putting together some of their ideas and their budgets."

He added, "We want to make it a manageable event, but we're also cognizant of the fact that it'll be a good-sized event. Usually things like this get to be pretty big quick."


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