Kirkwood does a good festival, and it did it again Saturday. The neighborhood's 23rd annual Spring Fling took over Bessie Branham Park on May 16, run start to finish by volunteers from the Kirkwood Neighbors Organization. Decaturish covered the day.
The lineup was the usual Kirkwood mix of low-key and genuinely fun: an artist market, a kids' zone with inflatables and the Georgia Bubbleman, and food from vendors including the Love at Wurst Sight truck and Urban Pie. The Hamstrings played live. A morning 5K kicked things off, historic home tours ran through the day, and the Wing Fling cook-off settled, at least until next year, who in Kirkwood does the best wing.
Andrew Feury, who chairs the festival committee, called it the largest and most fun all-volunteer-run festival in the city of Atlanta.
That is a neighborhood talking up its own party, but the proceeds are real. Money raised at Spring Fling goes back to the Kirkwood Neighbors Organization and community reinvestment, and past festivals helped pay for upgrades to Bessie Branham Park itself. Kirkwood sits just east of the BeltLine corridor in NPU-O, and weekends like this are a big part of why people move there and stay.
