SunFest celebrates future of Dix Park, promotes local businesses

The recent hot weather is the main reason why the sunflowers aren't as vibrant as they were last year, but rain helped any last-minute blooming. A small portion of the sunflower field on Saturday at Dix Park was filled with tall, blooming sunflowers.

Jason Budday of Cary said those types of flowers filled the whole field last year. City officials said a few hundred sunflowers were ready for Saturday's event.

"It's just one of those things, it all depends on the time of year," he said. "This won't keep me from coming back."

This year's festival is different from last year in that it has also grown into more than just a celebration of sunflowers, said Kate Pearce, planning supervisor for Dorothea Dix Park.

"Last year it was focused mostly on celebrating the sunflowers, the benefits of planting sunflowers and a lot of the activity was in the field," Pearce said. "Now you see that we’ve spread all of these activities throughout the park."

Pearce said the main purpose of the festival was to celebrate the park's natural beauty and bring the community together. Events at the festival centered around food and community, arts and culture, health and wellness and activities for kids.

Through each of these elements, Pearce said another one of the goals is to promote small, local businesses.

"Raleigh is such a creative community, so we’ve got all these great vendors that are selling their wares and getting their message about who they are and what they do," she said.

Each of these themes are also present in the Master Plan for Dix Park, according to Laura Weldishofer, who works in marketing and communications there.

"These themes will help anchor our community’s vision for what the park should offer as it develops over time," Weldishofer said. "At Destination SunFest, activities throughout the festival celebrate the programmatic themes in the Master Plan – offering something for everyone."

One of those businesses that hopes to benefit from its spot at SunFest is Ladyfingers Caterers, a catering service out of Raleigh that has been in business since 1985.

"The more you get your name out there, the better," said Tudi Jackson, the owner of Ladyfingers Caterers. "When I go to things like this and see things that I don’t know about I’m inquisitive and Google it and want to learn more about it."