Every year, Bridgeport City Clerk Andrea Kerr’s phone starts ringing about a particular topic when the weather begins to change. And that is whether or not there will be a Bridgeport Family Day at City Park.

 

Thursday night, the Fifth Annual Bridgeport Family Day was held and it turned out to be a huge success. In fact, Kerr said it was likely the biggest crowd ever as cool temperatures and no rain resulted in an estimated 2,000 people in attendance.

 

For those wanting to know whether there will be a sixth annual event, there’s no need to call Kerr on that. She already has an answer.

 

“There will be one next year. This has become a wonderful event,” said Kerr.

 

As for the date, that hasn’t been set yet. Kerr said she’ll let media venues  know next year when the date is established – so hold off on the phone  calls.

 

“The reason we do this, primarily is to accomplish the goal of having children and families be comfortable with our emergency service personnel and I can safely say, and I think they would say the same, that the goal was accomplished again,” said Kerr. “I know I was looking on Facebook last night and I could see friend after friend who was there that posted pictures of their children smiling and laughing, which is exactly what you want. I know, as well, there’s probably hundreds of more photos that were taken last night that I didn’t see that were just as great.”

 

Kerr said many of the first-time vendors, along with the longer-standing ones, continue to run with the event. Not only did she get commitments for a return from many of the first-time vendors, but she had something else unique take place.

 

“They asked us what other ways does Bridgeport get the community involved in things and was there a way they could take part. I told them about National Night Out and that anything we do we would let them know,” said Kerr. “The vendors were tremendous with giveaways, prizes, food and so many hands-on activities.”

 

Kerr said the decision to have the event is done the city administration. However, she said it does require line item approval in the budget annually by City Council. Kerr said it’s never been an issue and doesn’t anticipate that to be the case next year.

 

“Our staff and administration, as well as Council, knows the importance of having everyone in the community to feel good about approaching emergency service personnel from our police to firemen and anyone else,” said Kerr. “You could see that interaction last night as kids were climbing on the fire trucks, checking out the police motorcycle and petting the police dogs. This shines a positive light on our emergency service staff and I think they had as much fun as the kids and family did Thursday.”