This weekend was pretty different for me because I got to see the James River and the city of Richmond in a way I had never seen before. My freshman year, I went into the city just one time for the Fall Festival. However, the festival was more focused on art and music rather than an appreciation for the river itself, despite its location adjacent to the James. On Sunday, I got to volunteer at the Splash and Dash at Belle Isle, which was a 5k run that finished with a short stretch of paddling with a tube across the river.
I think the event was special to me for two main reasons. First, never in my life have I seen any sort of run involve a natural part of the area the way the Splash and Dash did. Obviously, I’ve seen runs organized around trails and forests, but never a river, and I think there is a special significance to that. A run on a trail seems, at least to me, a lot more convenient and it’s something that can be done every day. A activity that involves the river, however, requires not only a lot more effort, but a lot more planning and a lot more care and time in order to maintain the safety of the people and the health of the river. The other thing that I thought was special about the Splash and Dash was that it got people together in the river setting but it didn’t necessarily have to be a big learning experience about the watershed or about pollution. People could just go to the river and have fun as a community. I think those are the kinds of memories that stick with people the most. They could have fun and be silly in the race and still be part of a larger group that wants to do the same thing. This type of positive association is one that cannot be overlooked so readily. The more people that gather around the river on a positive and light note, the more likely they will be to build a relationship as a community and work to preserve that which provided the good memories in the first place in order to continue making memories later on. I think it would be extremely valuable to Richmond to have even larger scale activities that involve the river in some way as a means to make people more active, but also to get them aware of the presence of the river and make it a part of their everyday lives.