‘Friends-a-Palooza’ invites Concord community to practice kindness and outreach at Keach Park
Children participate in the Barranquilla Flavor dance demonstration from last year’s “Friends-a-Palooza.” Laura Miller / Courtesy photograph
| Published: 07-19-2025 11:01 AM |
Brenda Perkins believes the world would be a better place “if we were all focused on being kind.”
Perkins is the founder of Hearts for Kindness, one of 32 organizations that will join the Friends Program to celebrate International Friendship Day at Keach Park next Saturday. Her nonprofit helps fill financial gaps for those receiving social services and has been involved in the event, ‘Friends-a-Palooza,’ since its inception.
“Whether it’s putting out a free craft or face-painting a flower on a cheek or a basketball, an alligator or a dinosaur — we just try to have some fun with it,” she said. “So, hopefully everybody comes down and has some fun with us in the park.”
For four years, the Friends Program has brought together organizations like the Community Action Program Belknap-Merrimack Counties and the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center to mark the holiday and help advance its mission of supporting the state’s most at-risk individuals with education, housing and mental health resources.
The organization assists those living below the federal poverty level or experiencing family instability or resettlement challenges by providing intergenerational mentoring, food distribution programs and an emergency housing shelter in Concord.
Laura Miller, development director at the Friends Program, said the idea for a free, public event like Friends-a-Palooza came about during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We thought families needed free, fun stuff to do,” Miller said. “They needed to reconnect with both our agency and all of the different agencies that are around to help them.”
Since then, the celebration has been held at Keach Park, a location chosen for its proximity to many of the families the organization serves.
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“It makes it easier for them to come and not worry about transportation, since it’s such a barrier for under-resourced families,” Miller said.
The celebration involves special outreach to at-risk youth and will feature field games, kids safety demonstrations, food, music from 105.5 JYY and a dance demonstration by the multicultural dance program Barranquilla Flavor.
Friends-a-Palooza will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. on Saturday, July 26 at Keach Park in Concord. For more information about the event or the Friends Program, visit friendsprogram.org.
Brendilou Armstrong can be reached at barmstrong@cmonitor.com
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