The Florida Manatee Festival in Crystal River –
Fun & Factual!

(l-r) Helen Spivey, Co-Chair of Save the Manatee Club's Board of Directors, and longtime SMC volunteer Debra Brown get ready to educate visitors about manatees and the Three Sisters Springs project. (Photo by Celeste Moore)

By Helen Spivey,
Co-Chair, Save the Manatee Club Board of Directors

This year's Manatee Festival was just perfect! The weather on opening day was fantastic – in the mid-seventies with almost no wind to blow away brochures and informational papers. We were located two booths away from a new festival innovation, The Beer Garden, which attracted lots of folks at lunch time. They also had wonderful bands perform both days. We quickly learned to talk over the music, or, if it was a real loud part, we did a few dance steps to take up the time until it was quieter.

About a block past us was the boat and kayak rides out into the Crystal River where festival-goers could watch for manatees and could also see Three Sisters Springs in the distance. It's the 57 acres inside the City of Crystal River with three springs that we are raising money for to meet the 30% match for the $6.3 M grant awarded from the Florida Communities Trust Fund last September. Nobody can wait until it is finally acquired and we can go on the land to see manatees and the beautiful springs.

A visitor purchases a ticket for the donation drawing to win "Lil Sister." (Photo by Celeste Moore)

We had a great time selling donation drawing tickets for a beautiful 4 1/2-foot plush manatee named “Lil Sister” and some manatee necklaces from the 2008 Gasparilla Celebration in Tampa. Just gorgeous –manatees and pearls.

Things were a bit slow until Save the Manatee Club volunteer Susan Aungst decided to animate Lil Sister, and in her Lil Sister voice, begged people to take a chance to take the big manatee home. She was so funny!

We had so many Club volunteers helping with the booth that old timers like me and Deb and Doug Brown could sit back after giving a "how to" course to the new vols on Sunday at the festival.  Bobbie Gynan worked very hard though because it was just "she and me" on the Saturday morning. 

One thing we found worked really well, since the U of Florida Gators had just won the College Football National Championship, was to call out to anyone in Gator attire "Manatees love Gators." They would laugh and stop and chat. We would tell them about Three Sisters and many donated money for raffle tickets and took information on how to adopt manatees from Save the Manatee Club. 

SMC volunteer Ann Hemme was there with her kits for the children to take home and make a manatee. She was quite a hit!

The second day was a bit chillier and cloudy but the wind didn't blow nor did it rain a drop until the festival ended at 4 PM. That's when we drew the winning tickets for Lil Sister and the manatee necklaces.

All in all it was a magical time – good friends helping manatees and helping Save Three Sisters Springs.

Get more information on how you can Help Save Three Sisters Springs!