Every festival has a starting point. A place where inventive minds meet to give rise to a concept, which then becomes a physical manifestation. SSRF is no different. But our story perhaps arises from a darker place. Though this is hard to share, it is necessary to understand how our mission statement came to be.
2019, the current president and one of the founders answered an online ad for help a small Western Kansas community develop a Renaissance Festival. This was not a difficult task for her; she had grown up a "faire brat" and spent the formative years of her life at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Southern California. The President has many happy memories from when she worked as braider with Braids for Maids. Absolutely, Jacque was "down to help." After the festival ended, the decision was made to create a regular Renaissance Festival and hopefully develop it into a permanent site. And then Covid happened. Planning for the 2020 Renaissance Festival in Garden City Ks was put on until more information was available about the virus.
As time passed through 2020, the focus of the founders changed. Mellisa worked remotely as teacher and Jacque, a Registered Nurse, found herself working in the Covid unit. During this time Jacque would take every opportunity to develop the festival in between code blues. Between patient needs and rapid responses, she would answer questions from potential vendors or edit a grant. The process of keeping personal items infection free between running to an alarm, gowning up, or holding the hand of a person as they realize they are succumbing to the virus was a regular occurrence. During this year the planning that took place was equally strategic as well as therapeutic. The inspiration for the mission statement came from the many deaths that Jacque saw during that first year. And it was just the beginning. By 2021 the festival opened as Silver Sage Renaissance Festival, though it was not complete as a 501 c 3 at the time, it was on its way.
For the next two years, 2022 and 2023, Jacque who was now voted in as President manage the festival from Joplin - 7 hours away from Garden City. During this time the festival continued to evolve during the President's night shifts in the Covid unit. The Delta variant had arrived on scene, and it was far worse than the previous ones. During the worst nights when fear and desperation were thick, the planning of the festival became a subject shared between Jacque and her coworkers. Silver Sage Renaissance Festival was a far-off idea, but a powerful object of hope. Editing grant, emailing a performer, managing the Facebook feed for a little non-profit became a life boat, an escape from the endless dread. It was during these nights, so many nights, so many extra shifts that the mission statement took on a life of its own.
"Silver Sage Renaissance Festival is a community-based, inclusive and immersive educational experience where learning is natural and organically derived. We seek to create an environment where the public can develop knowledge and participate in a holistic sensory experience that fosters creativity and imagination with a touch of whimsy. We believe we can build a better future by remembering the past. "
But what did this really mean? What does it mean to foster creativity and imagination when you close your eyes and all you see is the people you could not help? When their faces blur together because the numbers were so much higher than our worst estimate. When you are haunted by the memories of countless lives lost. The feeling of losing hope is like no other, and each shift it was like a heavy sticky blanket smothering us until we could only function like robots. How is it even possible to feel whimsy when you are just struggling to find normalcy? Did I do enough? Did I try hard enough to save as many as I could? These questions Jacque could not even begin answer until late 2023, after the third year of the festival. It was as if all the pieces finally fit together and reason behind pushing through the misery and sadness made sense. She could not explain why she pushed so hard to create a place where peace was possible until a combat vet, who was her patient (he survived) was watching her closely and said to her “you have PTSD.” Jacque retorted, “No I don’t.” But then he listed his observations of her actions, and it was as if the world she knew came crashing down. It has taken another two years for Jacque to admit this combat marine might be right. But during these two year the clarity of his words made sense as to why she focused so hard on the root reason for the festival. Jacque did not just build a fun place where people play pretend. There is a reason behind SSRF. A deeper reason that was built from pain and despair.
"The Silver Sage Renaissance Festival is an immersive, educational program using both a creative and imaginative format to encourage a holistic learning experience that fosters curiosity, exploration, and ingenuity. This is accomplished through audience participation where the application of the arts, oral traditions, historical reenactments and hands-on sensory experiences are applied amidst a recreated Renaissance era village. The impact of this method of immersive education is a renewed sense of wonder and awe, expanded curiosity that stimulates a natural flow of information and exploration towards history, culture, the arts and sciences, and the world we live in."
She could not see it clearly during 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, because she was living through it. People who have advanced coping mechanisms and who work in complicated, high risk and or traumatic environments with high degrees of stress and violence such as nurses, law enforcement, military, first responders / EMS are trained to compartmentalize. Shut out the emotional, the scary, the brutal and focus on the task at hand. Focus on your training. But what happens in the long run. When days become months, then years of this kind of stress? What happens to the amygdala and the limbic system? The short answer - training will only get you so far. Eventually the ability to be creative, invent, innovate - it dies. Survivors need more than just surviving. We need a true Renaissance. What are we as a culture without those creative geniuses who invented, who inspired, to impassioned people? Who are we as species without the minds of Galileo? Carolin Herschel? Davinci? Tesla? Mary Shelley? Jacque Cousteau? Queen Elizabeth the first? Jacque created the festival, as it is now in direct response to the horrors she was living through a Covid nurse. She joked at the early stages of Covid that she was living dark ages. The Renaissance came after the dark ages because society needed to remember what it was like to laugh, find joy, dance in a circle with your neighbor. SSRF was born out of desperate need to remember what it is like to feel community. To have joy. And to celebrate our lives. We need to heal.