GREEN BAY — The Joannes Park Neighborhood Association will host its first-ever Joannes Jam event this Saturday, Sept. 28, at Joannes Park.

Joannes Park Neighborhood Association President Kelsey Lutzow said the event aims to get people out to enjoy all their neighborhood has to offer.

“We know that our parks are safer and our neighborhoods are safer when people are in them,” she said. “So how do we activate the neighborhood? How do we get people outside and meeting one another? We’ve seen some pretty great success in Green Bay with live music — we actually were part of the Tarlton Theatre’s city-wide music event earlier this summer called Keys to the City… We had a painter and we had musicians in the park and just seeing the activity from every age group — the younger kids who were just playing at the park all the way up to older neighbors — everyone getting out and activating the neighborhood was really cool. We’re hopeful that this will be kind of an extension of that excitement and that we can continue to do it.”

Joannes Jam 2024 will bring five performances across two stages — Jasha, Ramona and the Flower, Alley Cat and the Purrrfection, Dani Maus and Emmaliegh.

Joannes Jam 2024 will also be free for attendees to enjoy, which Lutzow said is especially important in making sure the event is accessible to all in the neighborhood.

“Joannes Park Neighborhood is lower income and our park is pretty great,” she said. “It’s huge and it has a lot of amenities, so we’re just trying to figure out how to get people to the park to see all of that stuff and also create this space where everyone can come and feel welcome. Thankfully, our school — East High School — right here in our neighborhood is the arts school, but we know that art is not super accessible to everyone, so we just want to make sure that we’re removing barriers and providing a free, family-friendly way to engage in the arts.”

In addition to free live music, the event will also feature free food provided by Schreiber Foods, Festival Foods and JBS, prepared and served by Crisis Cafe.
With the celebration taking place at the conclusion of Good Neighbor Week, Lutzow said she hopes the event encourages members of her neighborhood to continue to be neighborly towards one another.

“Green Bay Neighborhoods has Good Neighbor Week every year,” she said. “They’re doing projects every single day this week to help neighbors do yard work or paint something. All the neighborhoods that are included in Green Bay Neighborhoods think about, ‘What can we do to engage our neighborhood during Good Neighbor Week?’ This is our way of doing that — concluding the week with some fun, some music and some food and hopefully just encouraging everyone to be a good neighbor.”

For more information on the Joannes Park Neighborhood, head to joannespark.org.