The recent virtual meeting of Park Fete organizers resulted in more questions than answers, but officials still are hoping they can put on a city celebration this year.

Traditionally hosted the second weekend of July, Park Fete would have been July 10 and 11 this year, but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. A handful of planners, including Mayor Robert Swift – who is also a member of the sponsoring Escalon Lions Club organization – had an online meeting this past week to take stock of the situation.

Swift said it’s not a quick or easy thing to plan for and put on the celebration and right now there are too many unknowns when it comes to COVID-19 to effectively set a date.

“The event takes a couple of months minimum to put on, it costs a lot of money to put on the entire event as we know it and therefore we need to have several funding sources,” Swift said.

That includes sponsors and someone to get those sponsors lined up, the Lions Club beer booth and bringing in the carnival area for kids. Swift said with restrictions still in place, there isn’t a way to set a date right now.

Also involved in the planning is Paula Rocha, who said the hope is for some kind of event, sometime later in the year. At the very least, they want to make sure to offer the Miss Escalon pageant, as that offers scholarship money to participants.

Swift said the Lions Club is open to suggestions, and invited people to visit their Facebook page to get involved in the conversation.

“We have scheduled another meeting for July 23, a Zoom meeting,” Rocha added. “We are still thinking about partnering it with another event, everyone is throwing out ideas.”