COUNTRY MARKET DAY RETURNS

THIS YEAR’S COUNTRY MARKET DAY was full of firsts: the first since 2019 and the first on the School’s unified campus.

“We planned for an event that would bring families together in a fun and meaningful way, holding onto tradition and adding new components to the day,” said Joyce DePass, GDS director of community relations. “Following the global pandemic, the priority was to help build community.”

Joyce estimates that more than 1,200 people attended the fall festival, previously held at the former LMS campus on MacArthur Boulevard. Having High School students take part in the fun helped boost the numbers, she said, as did heavy promotion of the event in the Tenleytown area.

“The turnout exceeded expectations,” said Nicole Tyson, who co-chaired Country Market Day with her husband Derrick Tyson. Derrick added that the unified campus presented an opportunity to reinvent some aspects of the festival and attract more volunteers.

“There’s no way this type of community festival would exist without volunteers,” Derrick said. “The volunteers stepped up, and that made the work so much easier.”