Riverside Arts Weekend has been bringing art vendors to the village’s downtown for a weekend of excitement since 2008, but if the community doesn’t step up soon, organizers say the beloved institution might not make it to its 20th year.
While 2026 saw a successful Riverside Arts Weekend in June, members of the senior planning committee say they’re reaching the end of their ropes to continue making the event happen year after year.
“We face ongoing challenges with fundraising, volunteer engagement and attendance that raise serious questions about our ability to sustain RAW in the years ahead,” Maggie White said on behalf of the organization at the Riverside village board meeting on Oct. 15. “Our committee worked hard to bring RAW back after the pandemic and deliver a successful 2026 weekend, but putting on a successful event is not the same as having a sustainable organization. We’re reaching a point where we may not be able to continue RAW without greater community support.”
White and Lisa Janunas, both members of the senior planning committee, and RAW President Charlotte Zia told the Landmark that RAW takes many months of behind-the-scenes planning, marketing and fundraising to bring to fruition what some residents may take for granted as an annual institution in the village.
Zia said the work for one year’s Riverside Arts Weekend begins shortly after the previous year’s ends, with the volunteer organizers reviewing what worked or didn’t before launching into fundraising and reviewing artist applications for the next one.
“All that’s happening in November and December and January, and our promotions should be all year round, but we all have to take a breather,” Zia said. “We should be having our advertising and our promotions going throughout the year, so then we need to re-ramp those up, and there’s a lot of logistical details, tents and food vendors.”
She said the organization needs an influx of volunteers to handle the work throughout the year for the 2027 iteration, and there may not be enough money to sustain RAW into or past 2028 without more successful fundraising.
“We haven’t decided about 2027, but we have a very small bank account. We don’t know, depending on how much we could fundraise, if we can make it beyond 2027, which is why we’re doing this now,” Zia said. “We need the volunteers to uplift, to get 2027 off the ground.”
Over the years, the group said RAW has expanded its program, bringing in live music and activities geared for children to bolster attendance numbers. Even still, they said this year’s Riverside Arts Weekend didn’t garner as much attendance as they expected.
“We’re definitely at a crossroads. Even with the current group of people who are showing up, that’s not a lot of volunteers,” White said.
White, who handles the organization’s social media, said the group is launching a survey of the Riverside community to determine how important RAW is to residents and see if they can find willing volunteers.
“[We’re] asking what does it mean to them, to really get a pulse on, is this important? Are you indifferent? Do you know about it? Would you be willing to contribute time, money?” White said.
Riverside Arts Weekend will be one organization sending a representative to the Riverside-sponsored nonprofit summit that Trustee Alex Gallegos is organizing for January 2027, he told the Landmark.
While the organizers described themselves as burnt out by the year-long work to run Riverside Arts Weekend, they hope the institution can continue so the “hours, days, months” of work they’ve put into it won’t have been for naught.
“We really are trying to find something that everybody will find, art plus, to enjoy,” Zia said.
