At a free harvest festival in Verona on Sunday, a slackline park offered an activity built around a child’s choice to try and a friend’s encouragement. Circus educator Alex Devaux led the activity at Urban Triage’s fifth annual Harvest Festival. He described how seeing a friend try could prompt another child to join, and how friends could help when the line felt harder than expected.
That peer exchange is the detail Devaux emphasized when explaining the activity. He called it “challenge by choice”: seeing a friend try could encourage another child to join in, and a friend could help if it proved hard. WMTV’s article does not identify individual children or report how many crossed the line; it presents this as Devaux’s explanation of the park.
The festival took place Sunday, September 27, at the Farley Center for Peace, Justice and Sustainability in Verona, WMTV reported. Its first scheduled day had been Saturday, September 19, but Urban Triage announced a postponement after heavy overnight rain left the site in poor condition. The organization moved it to September 27, the date also shown in the official event listing.
Urban Triage listed the festival at the Farley Center from 3 to 8 p.m. and described it as a celebration of agriculture, community partners and families. WMTV’s after-event report confirms the gathering was held, describing a free event with food, music, children’s activities and local vendors. The sources serve different roles: the nonprofit described its plans, and local news reported what happened Sunday.
Before the festival, Urban Triage promoted a broad, all-ages program with children’s museum activities, face painting, bounce houses, tractor rides, produce and pumpkins. WMTV’s follow-up confirms children’s activities in general, as well as food, music and vendors; it does not say which exact advertised stations ran. Those specific attractions remain in the organizer’s preview rather than a list of verified on-site happenings.
Devaux had a five-year relationship with the gathering. He told WMTV he first joined as a volunteer and kept returning. This year’s role brought him to the slackline park, where he could share the kind of circus practice he teaches elsewhere. WMTV identifies him as a circus educator and performer with Novel Motion Circus and a teacher of youth circus classes at Madison Circus Space.
The report does not identify individual children who took part or say how many tried the line. It describes the activity as a chance to challenge themselves while learning from and helping peers. Devaux’s phrase “challenge by choice” places a participant’s own decision at the center of the activity, while his account also makes a friend’s encouragement part of how trying can feel possible.
At a slackline, balance is the visible task. Devaux’s description pairs that physical challenge with peer encouragement: a friend’s attempt can make the next person’s decision feel less daunting, and help can be close when it proves harder than expected. WMTV reported Devaux’s explanation; it did not provide a count of crossings or measure how much balance improved.
The festival was bigger than that one activity. WMTV describes a free gathering at the Farley Center with food, music, children’s activities and local vendors. Urban Triage’s agriculture program page says its recurring events connect people to food, land and one another, and describes the annual harvest festival as celebrating community-grown food and local growers. Those are the organization’s stated aims, not an independent measure of what changed after one afternoon.
That distinction helps keep the story in scale. The sources reviewed do not give a turnout total, a produce-distribution count or a longer-term outcome for the day. There is no reason to turn an afternoon’s gathering into a claim that it solved a larger problem. What WMTV documented is still concrete: a free festival took place, families and community members gathered, and a circus educator led an activity built around choice and peer help.
For Devaux, seeing children learn from and help one another is part of why he has returned to the festival. He described the joy of bringing people together and letting them explore, laugh and have fun. The available account does not tell us what every child carried home from the event. It does offer a clear picture of what made the slackline meaningful to its instructor: a child could be encouraged by a friend and offer that same encouragement in return.
After a rain delay, the planned festival finally brought people to the Farley Center on Sunday. WMTV’s reporting gives a brief view of an afternoon built from many activities, with one especially simple exchange at the slackline as Devaux described it: a child sees a friend try, chooses to join, and can find help when it gets hard. No record or grand claim is needed. The detail is small, but it is specific: an individual challenge shared with a friend.
Reader responses