Annual held Saturday after Easter

Over the last two years, like most organizations who host events, Friends was significantly impacted by the mandates and the restrictions imposed due to the Covid 19 virus. Apart from the organization and the park, many people’s lives and priorities have been changed forever. As the virus mandates have been lifted, organizations having a large enough volunteer base seem to have been able to overcome the challenge of returning after two years of dormancy. As a small non-profit made of mostly older volunteers, Friends of Palmetto has felt this challenge more significantly than most. This is the major hurdle that has forced Friends of Palmetto to cancel this event. Simply put, we cannot organize and host an event of this size on state property without a chairperson who has the time and energy to do things required and coordinate 30 plus volunteers. After searching and requesting for months, the organization was unable to find a volunteer who could give the event the necessary level of time and attention. We are grateful to all park patrons and campers who have been a blessing of support to this park and our events for over ten years. We could not do it without you. However, it takes a lot of volunteers and time both behind the scenes and in advance to execute this event and many others. We know that patrons have been looking forward to this event’s return and reservations have been made 13 months in advance. We considered how disappointed we know you all would be and tried to make changes to the event to make it more volunteer friendly or replace it with something else and still we came up with the same challenges. Sadly at this time, Friends does not have the membership or volunteer base to host an event of this size. Having attendance at this event is no longer enough. Whether this event returns in the future is unclear. It almost certainly will not without the renewed support of volunteers and members. Please consider becoming involved with Friends of Palmetto Island State Park.