Dan Medeiros, The Herald News
Published June 26, 2025
FALL RIVER — An event series begun as a way to reconnect neighbors separated during the COVID pandemic is still going strong in its fifth year — and now it’s a celebration of the city’s diversity.
Summer Evenings in the Park is back for 2025, bringing free concerts to eight of the city’s parks through July and August.
Speaking at a kickoff event at Griffin Park in Corky Row, Patrick Norton, executive director of the Narrows Center of the Arts, described it as a melting pot of Fall River.
“So many people in their neighborhood — multi-ethnic, multilingual, Black, brown, white, you name it — people come from all over their neighborhood to get together and enjoy great music, great art and great food,” Norton said.
Free concerts, free food, free arts and crafts
Norton said Mayor Paul Coogan pitched him the idea coming out of 2020, when social distancing kept people in their homes, and it has been successful in bringing the community together.
The series is in a different park each Wednesday through July and August. But at each event, there’s not only free music, but a cookout with free food and arts and crafts activities. Every family leaves with a bag of groceries donated from the Greater Fall River Food Bank, Citizens For Citizens and Angels Anonymous.
“You’ll see kids doing spray-painting for the first time while they’re eating a hamburger, while they’re sitting there with a bag of groceries to go home,” Coogan said. “It is truly, truly something special.”
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