It takes a village to coordinate a Grove event

A bunch of us have coordinated to get a nice Father's Day event going for Coconut Grove on Sunday, June 19. A lot of work has gone into Cars & Cigars. This is Grove-wide from 11 am to 4 pm. It is based around The Barnacle (3485 Main Highway), where a picnic and a lot of the classic cars will be displayed, that is where the awards will be given at the end of the day, too.

It all started with Bryan Passman, Grovite and car enthusiast wanting to get his car club involved in the Grove some way. A lot of options came up and the end result is the classic car show on Sunday. Bryan's group will be displaying their cars from The Barnacle grounds and out into the Grove streets.

Katrina Boler at The Barnacle took over the event and has worked tirelessly, with her Barnacle partner, Steve Dimse, to make the day a success. Felice Dubin and Steve Licata, who run the Merchant's Group, along with the help of Nathalie Salas-Restrepo, have coordinated from the sidelines, making sure all aspects come together.

I was in charge of getting the Grove Bucks done. Katrina and I went before the BID marketing committee a month or so ago to get funding, I asked for funding for the Grove Bucks for the event and Katrina asked for all the rest to put on the whole event. The BID committee obliged and we were funded.

Katrina then got going on her end and Bryan got going with the car sign-ups, he did an excellent job, there are over 40 classic cars involved. I reached out to my friend Ed Ferenczi, who has the artwork for the Grove Bucks, we needed changes made, like expiration date and things like that. Ed and I coordinated with Jeff Catanach, at the UPS store, who prints the Bucks, and those were created. I also had the job of getting the trophy done, which is a sort of Golden Coconut, it isn't the Golden Coconut that the Chamber bestows on people each year, it is a glittery type thing, on a stand, which I hooked AnnaMaria Windish-Hunt into creating.

Last Saturday, AnnaMaria called me and asked me to go store hopping with her to find a base for the coconut award. We found a great one at a local Grove shop and she has created a masterpiece to be given to the best car.

The Best Car will be decided upon by the public, who will have the chance to vote on their favorite. That person will win the coconut trophy and a bunch of Grove Bucks. All participating car owners will also be given Grove Bucks to spend in the Grove on food for that day.

We then needed cigar rollers, we had the "cars" now all we needed were the "cigars." They were located and Naomi Evans, marketing director at CocoWalk, stepped in to provide cigar rollers at CocoWalk, The BID is paying for the cigar rollers at The Barnacle and in front of the Bookstore (I'm thinking of that Seinfeld episode with the crepe rollers for some reason) and that's how it all came to be.

And finally, the Miami Parking Authority donated about 30 parking spaces around the Grove for the overflow of cars that don't make it onto The Barnacle property.

It's not easy throwing an event, and this was a simple event, as events go. Imagine large events like the King Mango Strut, or the Great Grove Bed Race or Taste of the Grove or the whole 4th of July full day of events -- three days' worth of activities actually. The Bed Race committee has already been meeting to coordinate September's event and the King Mango Strut committee has already started on late December's event. And believe it or not, the Snow Days committee has also been meeting since March to coordinate the December event, it's a bit more involved than just throwing snow down on a few streets.

Lots of people (all unpaid) do lots of work behind the scenes to put on all of Coconut Grove's successful events. It truly takes a village to get it done each and every time. Now it's just up to you to come out and enjoy!