CENTER — The Town of Center was part of a Future Town Tour event that was held by Warm Cookies of the Revolution on Friday, Sept. 15, prior to Center High School’s football game that same night.

The free event was a pre-game party under the pavilion at the Center Town Park that featured live music and food. There were tacos, chili, buttered corn, taco salads, burritos, and tortillas served. All the food was free and the first 100 people that showed up also received a T-shirt and free entrance to the football game that night.

People ate food and mingled. There was a drizzle of rain, but it did not stop anyone from having fun. People laughed and danced to the live music. The football field behind the park was lit up and people sat in the bleachers ahead of the game.

Evan Weissman of the Warm Cookies of the Revolution spoke about the event and their involvement.

“We are doing this thing called Future Town,” Weissman said. “We are trying to center rural Colorado into smaller towns in the future rather than the past. If you think about it, in the past rural areas were not really thought of. We are working with local organizations in different towns. We started this in Leadville last fall and the plan is to keep visiting different communities. We will be in Alamosa next weekend. The plan is to work with more communities and just exchange rural suburban and urban and just make things better in rural communities. We have had an incredible time here. We are excited about the tours.”

Adrian Molina, who lives in Denver but works closely with Katrina Ruggles in Center, spoke at the event.

“This event tonight is wonderful. I curated this event and planned it out with Katrina Ruggles of the Center school,” Molina said. “There have been about 200 people come out and it’s just gone great. This is an experiment to bring together different elements and culture. We have the Marimba band and the Salida Circus that has been providing some circus performances. We wanted to support the home football team, too. This was Katrina's vision and the school’s vision. Katrina also wanted to support the young people here and the football team.”

Katrina Ruggles also spoke at the event.

“Despite the weather, I think everything went well tonight,” Ruggles said. “We have had a lot of people and everyone’s happy. We have had free food and live music and brought a lot of people together to enjoy the game and the community time here. We gave away 100 free T-shirts, too. I feel this was a great success. We will also be bringing more events too.”

Briseda Hernandez said she enjoyed the event.

“It’s nice that Mrs. Ruggles put this on for all of us,” Hernandez said. “The free food is great. This is such a nice thing to do for all the kids. I hope there are more events like this. As a parent this really makes us feel welcome.”