In its first year, this new event has already raised over $20,000 to preserve the historic Percy and Edwin Warner Parks shelters. We invite you to create your own private park dinner by hosting a shelter dinner for 12 of your favorite friends in one of these historic structures. Prizes will be awarded.
The shelters were built by the WPA more than 80 years ago during the height of the Great Depression, using limestone and cedar found in the Parks and surrounding area, and Nashville families, friends, and visitors have adopted the shelters as special gathering places ever since.
Friends of Warner Parks completely restored the shelters six years ago, but neither Metro Parks nor Friends has had money to perform routine maintenance. Your patronage will ensure that shelters will be around for at least another 80 years for future generations to enjoy.
Come on out to the barn and enjoy Nashville’s tradition of pickin’ in the park with 2,000 of your Warner Park friends! Bluegrass and Roots pickers jam in circles in and around the barn, while three headlining bands perform on the stage. All funds raised by the Pickin’ Parties go toward protecting the Parks as well as funding educational programs and special projects.
Hummingbirds are a big deal in Warner Parks. The Nature Center is one of only a few places in the country where observers can watch hummingbird banding in action! Bird research has been ongoing here since naturalist Amelia Laskey began her bluebird nesting box program in 1936.
This ticketed event takes place each year at the height of Hummingbird season in early September at the Warner Park Nature Center. Proceeds from ticket and art sales support the Bird Information, Research and Data (B.I.R.D) programs, keeping these programs free and available for schools, families and Park visitors.
Cocktails and hors d’oeuvres will be served while guests mingle, watch hummingbirds at the feeders at sunset.
On a glorious Sunday, November 10th, 650 friends and supporters gathered in their autumn finest under the big tent in Ridge Field for the fall fundraising tradition that is Sunday in the Park! Since October 1990, when Clare Armistead and Trudy Bird planned the very first Sunday in the Park in Ridge Field, the community has come together for a fall al fresco luncheon to share in their passion for Warner Parks. The event has grown each year and is a cornerstone of Friends of Warner Parks fundraising. We are so grateful to our fabulous 2019 Chairs, Trisi Larish, Tori Wimberly and Jay Joyner for their leadership and coordination of their fantastic committee and all the beautiful details of the day. Special thanks to lead sponsor Lee, Danner & Bass, Inc. and Preservation Club underwriters Pinnacle Financial Partners and Kristin & Don Taylor. We are so grateful to all the event’s underwriters, Lipman Brothers and R.S. Lipman Company, our Luke Lea Society Members, and all the patrons who toasted 30 years of this spectacular event that allows FRIENDS to preserve and protect the Warner Parks! Since Clare Armistead and Trudy Caldwell Byrd chaired the first Sunday in the Park in October 1990, this beloved tradition has grown. We salute each of our chairmen who have provided their time, support and leadership year after year, and we salute all those who serve on committees and who attend and contribute! Thanks to our underwriters who partner with us as we protect and preserve our beautiful Warner Parks!
Many modern marathons have become spectacles rather than athletic events. But it was not always this way. Marathons used to be about running for the sake of running. They were about pushing oneself beyond the physiologic limits of the human body. While running. Featured in Marathon & Beyond and in Runners’ World magazines, it is a marathon that is about running. Running hard. Running over big and memorable and painful rolling hills through dense woods. Running with other like-minded athletes. The Harpeth Hills Flying Monkey Marathon is about the joy and pain of running a unique, and uniquely challenging–some would say beastly–26.2 mile course in the beautiful and historic Percy Warner Park, nestled among the Middle Tennessee Harpeth Hills. Proceeds from race registrations support Friends of Warner Parks.
