Pumpkin patch excitement at the UH Fall Festival. Photo provided by UH Fall Festival.
By Michelle Whipple (Birney Beekeeper Alliance) & Marc Johnson (UHCA)
For decades, Taste of University Heights has been one of our neighborhood’s signature traditions, and this year the University Heights Community Association (UHCA) was thrilled to take on organizing it — and to bring it inside the University Heights Fall Festival on Saturday, Oct. 17. By combining our efforts, we gave the whole community a bigger, better event than ever before. Our restaurants and bars reached more people than ever, neighbors and friends enjoyed a wider variety of activities, and everyone had a chance to support both Birney Elementary School and the UH community.
Taste of UH check-in. Photo provided by Marc Johnson.
A dozen restaurants and bars participated, and over 150 tickets were sold with proceeds earmarked for “Save Our Sign” (follow our progress on the UH Trolley Sign Refurbishment fundraiser). Local businesses Prospera MIA, Glaskyn Aesthetics, BFD, Resume Guru, Curah Travel, Kairoa, EnviouSkin, Source Connection Chiro & Light, Lancers, Align Pilates, Whit and Home, MediVet Express, and Healing Droplets donated wonderful gifts for two drawings. We thank them deeply for their generosity — and hope the winners enjoy what our businesses have to offer.
Taste was one part of a much larger day. The Fall Festival was planned, organized, and run entirely by Birney families — no outside events company, just neighbors pitching in for their school. More than 150 volunteers gave over 2,000 hours across four-plus months of planning. The result: an estimated 3,000-plus attendees across Park Boulevard, Adams Avenue, and Trolley Barn Park, a record 58 vendors, more than 20,000 social media views, and sponsorship dollars that doubled over last year, thanks to festival sponsors Pemberley, Mary Ann Stevens and Anastasia Brewer Real Estate, BFD, La Petit Étoile 360, Chris Ward, Hillcrest Glow Dental, and Aspen Leaf Preschool.
“What stays with me about this year’s festival isn’t just how big it got — it’s how many hands built it,” said Hannah Going, the 2026 Fall Festival chair. “When our school thrives, the whole neighborhood feels it.”
Shoppers enjoying fresh flowers. Photo provided by UH Fall Festival.
That scale matters. The festival is growing beyond a feel-good tradition into a real, sustained source of funding for programs Birney’s budget doesn’t cover.
To every volunteer, vendor, sponsor, restaurant, and neighbor who came out — thank you.
See you next fall.