On Saturday, Sept. 23, FUMC Plano parked a record number of cars for the Plano Balloon Festival!

In 1980, after 50 pilots took part in the Plano Balloon Rally, with five balloon launches, Governor Bill Clements proclaimed Plano the “Balloon Capital of Texas.” The next year the event was renamed Plano Hot Air Balloon Festival and relocated to Bob Woodruff Park for the first time.

In 1999, the Festival moved from Bob Woodruff to Oak Point Park, right across from the raw land FUMC Plano had just purchased. Immediately, we had the perfect place for parking!   

In fall of 2002, the church relocated to its current site, and the parking event was there for all to witness.  Randy Jennings became involved at that time, and for the past 13 years, Randy has been in charge of organizing the entire event of Balloon Fest parking. This year, we parked over 4,000 cars and chalked up 580 volunteer hours! The total amount raised will be announced THIS SUNDAY!

On any of those four days of the Festival, Randy can be seen buzzing around in a golf cart from volunteer station to volunteer station bringing water, offering help, changing out money bags, rebooting credit card tablets, and checking on each volunteer. This year, on a day which had an extreme heat advisory, Randy was zipping around from point to point all afternoon with his 10-year-old son Nicholas beside him. Deanna and Lance Carpenter were working as volunteers as well in the hot sun. At some point, both Nicholas and Deanna went inside to get out of the heat for a while. Deanna began to talk about how well the event was coordinated and how well everything was going. Nicholas said, “I have the best dad ever!”

Deanna and I will take Nicholas’ word for that, because we have seen his dad at work organizing and on-the-job at the Festival, always there to offer help, solve a problem, and model for all an authentic and booming welcome to the next car of people who are arriving, often for the first time, with great expectations. With Randy at the helm, their first introduction to the Festival – finding a place to park their car – lays the groundwork for a wonderful experience!

What an introduction they had to who FUMC Plano is, connecting God and Grace to Self and Community!

Thanks be to God for Randy Jennings and 580 more! 

See you Sunday,

Judith