The members of the Riverdale Fire Department and their family and friends rose to the challenge on multiple fronts once again at this year's Riverdale Park Day.  Faced with a late retirement of the usual RPD committee members, representatives from the department along with the Riverdale Arts Council, town representatives, and other concerned citizens pulled off a spectacular "Community Bonding" event Saturday.  The weather cooperated and gave us a warm, sun filled day that was enjoyed by all in attendance.

The department took its usual position on the Riversdale Mansion grounds and set up for distributing fire prevention/education materials and providing the bulk of refreshments for the day.  As one of only two vendors for food and drinks, the members stayed busy all day providing hamburgers, hotdogs, chips, nachos, and ice cold beverages at rock bottom prices.

F/F Johns (Nova), who assisted greatly with the overall production of Riverdale Park Day, coordinated some "surprise events" for the attendees.  One was a Pie Eating Contest which ended in a three-way tie and had to be decided by an "eat-off".  Another was a community tug-of-war competition.  This started out as a neighborhood vs. neighborhood competition with bragging rights going to the "stronger" neighborhood.  But little did we know, Councilmember Rivas had another competiton in mind.  The joint neighborhoods agianst the fire department.  It was a tough battle and the department lost the first round. But we rallied with the addition of a few holdout members on the second go around and emerged victorious.  We were satisfied that we were able to make a comeback, but CM Rivas insisted on a tie-breaker.  "Unfortunately", the department lost the tie-breaker and the kids were able to celebrate in their triumph over the department.

With everything coming together as smoothly as it did, the day went by quickly and before we knew it, it was time to breakdown and get ready for the evening's affair - GOATMAN HOLLOW - our annual fall fundraising haunted attraction.  Saturday was a "Riverdale Park Residents Only" preview of the attraction.  Some members had to hurredly get up to the haunt and get in costume and makeup while the remainder cleaned up and manned the apparatus for standby at the event.  GOATMAN HOLLOW will be open every Friday and Saturday night throughout October.  Please see our special website www.goatmanhollow.com for more information.

Videos of the day will be posted soon.